Residuum
by quillandspindle
Summary: Residuum [noun] singular : that which is left behind when all else has burned away.
1. Part I: Inception

*** # ***

 **Residuum** [ _noun_ ] singular:

 _that which is left behind after all else has burned away._

* * *

 **PART I: Inception**

He is the fifth.

It's always the same: the creased brow, the darting glance as they try to read between the lines. It's never _what_ she says; the reaction is always to what it says _about_ her - that she's lying to protect herself, that she's lying to soften the rejection, that she's lying because she's insane and up till that moment, masterful at hiding it.

She gives them some time to let it sink in, of course. She concedes aloud that it's a lot to process. She even laughs at herself in that self-deprecating way that had made them lose their hearts to her in the first place.

"Sounds crazy, doesn't it?" Her voice is merry, and her question borders on rhetorical, but it's her invitation to engage, draw near, not panic.

"Immortal, huh?" They ask. "So you can't die?"

Or

"You'll stay twenty-two forever, then?"

Or

"But you're still getting older . . . right?"

All the different tones, angles, priorities. So many iterations; mortals attempting to define infinity housed in flesh and bone. And because they're so busy analyzing _it_ , analyzing _themselves_ \- how they could've been so stupid not to have realized she was completely mental - they miss the way the light goes out in her eyes.

 _There goes another_ , she thinks. _So close. I really thought_ this _might be the one._

Her first had been at sixteen: a boy from school, her first dance, her first kiss.

(Well. . . not _really_ her first. _He'd_ been her _true_ first at the tender age of eleven, in exactly all those ways, but _he_ didn't count, she'd told herself. Not when she'd dreamed all of those eleven years what it _should've_ been like and _he_ hadn't even come close.)

Numero Uno had lasted four months. She'd thought to tell him sooner rather than later, so there'd be nothing hidden between them.

She'd learned _very_ quickly the value in keeping secrets.

After that, she'd waited a year, a year and a half, two, three - time was just numbers, anyway - until they were begging her to move in, to wear the ring, to spend the rest of her life with them.

The rest of _her_ life!

(If they only knew.)

Still, each subsequent one adds to her repertoire of Things To Say, and by the time Mark comes along, her words are practiced, soothing; therapeutic even.

"I'm going to live for a very, very long time," she's the picture of efficiency as she delivers her speech, "and I'll look exactly like I do right now, although I can choose to age with you, if we want."

She watches his face - by now, she can recognize the expressions as they cycle through disbelief, shock, anger, uncertainty, insatiable curiosity. Even the questions are predictable - after all, back when it'd first happened, she herself had asked every one of them. And she obligingly supplies the answers, propitiation for the burden she'd laid on him, remembering her own wide-eyed amazement at being handed eternity on a platter before she'd even brushed the fringes of adolescence.

"How did it happen? Were you born that way?" He is the first to ask this; she is pleasantly surprised and, for an instant, flounders.

"Someone did . . . a . . . a spell, and we - I - became immortal."

He catches the slip, grabs it like a drowning man who sees the shadow of a line thrown at him. " _We_? You're not the only one? How many _are_ there like you?"

 _So I can become immortal, too?_

 _No,_ she fights him in her mind as she senses his unspoken hope, _you don't know nearly enough people to make it okay to live forever. Because you will outlive every single one, and you'll be left behind, over and over again. Can you grasp that? Can you bear it? Being_ always _left behind?_

She dusts him. Tomorrow it won't matter that she was his soulmate, that he was ready to forsake all others and pledge that dizzying fact before the entire world. The last three years will be as if they never were. They will unblinkingly pass each other in coffee shops, stand shoulder-to-shoulder as strangers on the train, and never guess that they'd fallen asleep beside each other in another lifetime.

She dusts him. While he sits on the park bench, still trying to wrap his mind around immortality and this brand new layer of _forever_. Before he can tell anyone else. While she can still save him.

She dusts him while her heart breaks. Because she will remember every single kiss that he never will.

Tomorrow she will dust his family, too - the ones who've met her, who know how much she loves him back.

She shouldn't be sad, not after doing it four times, and surviving each one. But she is, and she does.

* * *

Night has fallen in the park, long past the hour when it's safe for a woman to be out alone, even one as quick with her fists as she. There are gangs that stalk these parts, who'd happily prey on those unwitting enough to wander into their territory, and they'll show as little mercy to those drunk on sorrow as the easy drinks that promise escape from it. But she's never been afraid, especially not tonight, when her anger is a weapon that stretches dangerously thin the line between _immortal_ and _invincible_. What are a few lawless men when she feels she could annihilate the world . . . if she could only turn the maelstrom outward, away from her own wretched conscience.

The air flutters with the barest of whispers and someone stands beside her on the bridge. She knows without turning her head who it is.

"You look like hell," he says by way of greeting.

"Thanks."

A familiar silence settles between them.

"Lost another one today," she says heavily.

"Ah."

She grinds her lip between her teeth and stares out at the city lights hanging upside down in the river, slowly blurring through unwilling tears. When they'd been younger, this would've been when the mocking began - flippant allusions to her poor judge of character, her abysmal inability to hold on to even losers. She bites harder, harder, counting the seconds until she hears _I Told You So_.

It doesn't come. Instead, his hand cups her cheek to turn her face to his. There is no triumph in his eyes.

And just like that, the storm ebbs, and she collapses against him.

"I heard," he murmurs, "so I came."

 _Daphne_ , she guesses.

"Again." She exhales almost resentfully and pulls away.

"Who else would? You shut everyone out."

They're silent, watching the river flow beneath them, the dead leaves swirling in eddies, the man in the kayak floating lazily by. She's struck by how it's a metaphor of their lives: _water under the bridge._

"How many does this make?" When he speaks again, she can't discern his tone, but the words are loaded enough.

"I'm not keeping count," she lies, then rationalizes, "they're _people_ , not numbers."

"Aren't you tired?" He persists.

"We're not having this conversation again."

"You didn't answer my question."

She turns on him in reawakened fury.

"It doesn't matter whether I'm tired or not. I know what you're getting at. I know you think I'm wasting my time, that it's a lost cause, that it's the fifth one and I'm _still_ dusting them, _still_ failing. Maybe it'll take one hundred guys before I find one I _won't_ have to dust. I'm not giving up - if he's out there, I'll find him. But I can't if you're always picking me up each time it fails, like a security blanket nobody asked for."

"That's all I am, huh? A shoulder to cry on?" His voice teeters on the brittle edge of anger. "What about that future? What about Paris?"

Her eyes narrow; she'd been right all along, about his motives, and especially about his judgement of her. "If you've come to say 'I told you so', you can just -"

"I'm not here to gloat," he quietly interrupts. "Not after this long. And you know that, so don't pretend that you don't."

She pounds her fist on the wooden railing, but the confrontation has stolen the last of her energy, and she wilts against the peeling lumber.

"Paris . . . was special," she concedes, and he can hear the frustration in her voice. "Paris was when we first thought . . . when we actually believed. . . Paris was . . ."

"Paris was _right_ ," he finishes, stepping closer, daring to curve his body around hers. "You knew it, I knew it."

She doesn't disagree, and he lets himself hope. But a second goes by, and then a minute, and he realizes that not disagreeing is not the same as assent.

A noise distracts them then and they straighten, instinctively checking their surroundings for a reason to shift into the fighters they are. A gang would be almost welcome - heaven knows he wants nothing more than to hit someone right then. But it's only a jogger whose eyes widen at the sight of him: the face of luminous beauty, the lines of a body at once strong and graceful, the diaphonous wings moving lazily in the moonlight.

Sabrina frowns as the interloper scrambles to flee. _Run, why don't you_? _After all, it's what strangeness makes you do._

"Well," her companion's voice draws her back to the matter at hand, "it sounds like you want a clean slate. I know an exit sign when I see it. Good luck finding your unconditional soulmate."

He whirls, puts distance between them, his footsteps feather-light on the wooden beams.

"Puck," she calls after him, and he stops, turning just his head, into the breeze that has suddenly picked up around them.

"I can't marry my first crush. It doesn't happen. First crushes are never endgame."

"Keep telling yourself that," Puck grinds out, and feels as if part of him will forever be stuck there on that bridge, long after even the scent of her perfume is lost on the wind.

"I'll see you around, then?"

"No, you won't," he promises flatly, and vanishes upward in a funnel of fallen leaves and dust.

* * *

When she meets Bradley, it isn't love at first sight. The good ones seldom are - this she knows from experience. He isn't a wonder on the sports field like Mark, doesn't have Steven's ambition to open restaurants in all the major cities of the world, and will probably never stand in front of a judge for a speeding ticket, let alone the strings of successful lawsuits against environmentally-irresponsible multi-million-dollar companies that Joshua has under his belt. Bradley is a teacher at the local high school, beloved by many, refreshingly open-minded about the world, funny, and stable as a rock. His is humble work - at best the launching pad for future scientists and journalists, and if there are any accolades to his name, they will be prizes-by-proxy: Nobel, Pulitzer, Michelin, won by the students who are destined to exceed him. He is utterly normal, will live out his life in glorious ignominy, and Sabrina will bask in every unoutstanding minute of it.

 _Normal is good_ , she relishes the thought as she holds him up against all the others she's left in her wake. _I've been settling for men who rose too high and fell too far._ _But no longer;_ this _is what I want. I choose this -_

 _not Fate,_

 _not premonition,_

 _not time;_

I _._

Thus, once more, she puts herself back in the game. And when Bradley holds her and kisses her under a summer sky, her heart quickens and she lets herself believe - again - that he is for keeps.

* * *

He proposes before she can tell him.

She freezes with her specters roiling within her in all the shades of fear; so much _fear_.

He misconcludes: she hesitates because it's only been seven months and society might frown on a courtship that seemed like a blink.

"I know we haven't known each other that long," he rationalizes, and Sabrina, finally galvanized into action, puts her hand on his lips before he can lead himself further astray.

"I have something to tell you first," she blurts out, as dread settles like a cancer in her gut.

Bradley laughs nervously. "It doesn't matter what you've done . . ." his voice drops, ". . . or how many people you've done it with. That's the past. I love you, and our future is all I care about."

She doesn't even blush. It's shocking how guys seem to think the same way, that there's only one thing a girl could be ashamed of, might want to exorcise from her soul before her wedding day; if they'd only guessed that there were far darker secrets to hide. Not that any of them had, of course - to have even imagined the premise of it was ludicrous, let alone the possibility that it could be standing right in front of them, looking like any other girl in any other lifetime.

But perhaps it was a blessing in disguise that, caught by surprise, one often has nothing but honesty to offer. _Irreconcilable differences_ , they'd told her, one after the other, blusteringly ineloquent as they'd made their ungracious exits. Slightly more worthy of pity were the ones who'd _stayed_ in spite of what she'd told them, even as they'd clung desperately to their sentiments while her words blew their narrow, reductionistic minds apart.

 _I am immortal._

She'd dusted them all anyway, without exception: the turncoats, the patriots, and the ones too paralyzed by shock to pick a side.

Clean slates, indeed.

And now Bradley is waiting for her to continue, so she takes a breath. _In a minute, it'll be over_ , she counsels herself, _he'll know, and I'll see which team he swings for, and if it'd been worth it to have traded spectacular for normal_ _, not that it matters._

But it _does_ matter. _This one_ in particular, matters. Of all the men who'd wandered unsuspectingly into her life, _this one_ is her favorite, precisely _because_ he's unpretentiously, guilelessly, effortlessly normal. So with her heart in her mouth and choking on her words, she explains who she is, how she is cursed, and how, as staunchly as he vows to be with her forever, she can only ever leave him behind.

Bradley listens without so much as a twitch.

When she's finished, he doesn't fire off the questions. Instead, he reasons quite seriously, "So . . . we'll have fifty, sixty years together and then I'll die and you'll go on and love someone else, but during those fifty, sixty years, I get to give you everything I am and everything I have to make you the happiest woman on earth?"

"What?" She hadn't expected this.

"How many proposals have you received, Sabrina? In your immortal lifespan?"

She frowns, still stunned. This line of thought is completely new territory; she'd always counted years, not lives. _Never_ lives.

"A few," she hedges.

"And how many times have you been married?"

"None," she admits.

"So who changed their mind - they or you?"

Her lips disappear in a thin, hard line, the barest of fissures in a face otherwise locked over its secrets.

"It was even on both sides."

He looks disappointed, as if he'd expected her to declare all his predecessors cowards and herself the abandoned martyr. Sabrina sees his look and offers, "The ones that didn't run screaming had no idea what they were saying yes to. So I did them a favor and helped them find their way out."

Bradley's gaze is intense. "I'm not screaming. Or running. Are you going to show me out, too?"

Sabrina's eyes fill with tears, but she isn't mourning this time, because sometimes hope burns too brightly for the soul to hold in.

* * *

There still remained, however, the practicalities and logistics of immortality. And to that end, even the best sentiment in the world must eventually be called to into reckoning, as happens one winter evening while the snow is bright on the ground and the ornaments barely hanging on to a faded spruce that had lost all holiday cheer along with its presents. Bradley, his face shining, makes his announcement amidst the cacophony of ticks and drips from the space heater valiantly battling the frigid January air.

"No." Sabrina's eyes almost swallow her face with fright.

"Why not?" Bradley leans over her grandmother's table, weaving his forearms over the leather-bound tome over which he'd been poring in the past hour.

"It's not a free-for-all. You don't know what you just said, Brad."

"Of course I do. I've been thinking about this for weeks."

"This is not a good thing."

" _Not_ doing this is not a good thing."

Sabrina continues staring, aware that her mouth is agape, that she'd been too easily taken in by Bradley's suggestion to visit her grandmother's home, immerse himself in the sights and sounds of the place where it all began, read the journals, see the book that had given her eternal life.

She attacks from a different direction. "What will your family say when they realize you're not aging?"

"I'll tell them."

"Oh _, really_? Auntie Ruby, too?"

Bradley hesitates. "Probably not her."

"Uncle Arvid?"

A sigh. "Or him. . . or Josh and Troy."

A heavier sigh. "Or anyone."

Bradley bows his head over the parchment pages, hands untucking themselves from the cradle of his arms, reaching for his temples.

"Family," Sabrina commiserates, but her voice betrays her relief. "The ties that bind."

"Like shackles," he chuckles, and lifts his eyes to hers. "But we'll take it as it comes."

Before she knows what he's doing, he's picked up the pen, flipped over a blank page, and written _Once upon a time, there was a man named -_

"Stop!" She lunges across the table and grabs his hand.

He turns to her, questioning, almost obstinate.

"No! You can't, Brad. You mustn't! This is wrong."

"How is it wrong?"

"We . . . we can't turn people into Everafters just to solve problems." She hears the hypocrisy in her voice even as she remembers how her own name had found its way into that book.

"Well, I suppose it's progress that you've admitted we _do_ have a problem. Even if I don't see any other solution for it."

" _I'll_ age. I'll age for you."

The words explode out, urgent and passionate. She'd meant them as a promise to him, but in the ensuing silence, they echo back at her like a thunderclap, and it's a different voice, wild and merry, in which she hears green and gold, the wind in her hair, tentative kisses, strong arms. She feels as if she's been struck full across the face while the universe gloats.

Bradley, utterly unaware, furiously disagrees.

"What? No. For as long as we _both_ shall live. The vows - we can make them _literally_ mean forever. And I want _us_ to be forever."

"And our children?" Sabrina shakes herself free, forces herself to engage, reminds herself that she'd _chosen_ this. "If we have any?"

"They'll live forever, too."

"Will they? It's not hereditary, you know."

Comprehension abruptly dawns, and he frowns.

"We'll have to write them in the book, too." Sabrina is relentless. She _has_ to be, to get through this. "Without their choice, or with. As long as we can't bear to watch them grow older than us, to die while we're still young enough to bury them."

"Don't be morbid," Bradley chides, but his tone is now uncertain.

"For as long as we _both_ shall live," she parrots him. "A _mortal_ lifespan, Brad. _I'll_ meet _you_ , not the other way around."

 _Time is just numbers anyway._

"Are you sure?" His voice is a pained whisper.

 _If we're counting lives, then you are my seventh, and if that isn't a lucky number, I don't know what is._

"Yes," she says desperately.

* * *

But she is not.

And she's quaking at the knees as she stands before the minister, Bradley beaming at her side. In the pews behind them, a depraved pantomime plays out among their guests: one half the masked players and the other the oblivious spectators, channeling misguided approval through benign expressions of joy. There is not an ounce of truth in this room, she realizes, and she is about to pledge her troth to either the deceivers or the deceived.

Which, though, is Bradley? And which is _she_?

All at once, she breaks out in cold sweat. She cannot be here. She _must_ not be here. This is _wrong_. She feels faint, but she forces herself to keep standing, to continue smiling.

So that no one will guess that inside, she's begging: _Please, let this stop. I can't do this. I can't -_

The stained glass window shatters with a crash -

\- and the sound of wings flapping, a hurricane that rains down rainbow shards, prism sprinkles upon a doomed celebration.

Her heart's in her throat. She doesn't dare look up. She's so relieved, and so mortified that she feels sick. Someone had heard her pray. Someone agrees with her that this was a mistake, that Bradley was a mistake, as were all the others who came before him.

But everyone is gasping now, whimpering and indulging in histrionics as they gaze upward. If she is the only one who doesn't, everyone would _know_.

So she does.

 _He_ is floating down to her, and he's a beautiful sight, though not only because he is immortal and crafted like a sculpture.

He is _here_. He _knew_. He came, as he always has. And he has eyes for only her, and a smile that she fights with all her might not to mirror, because she has no business to be glad to see him, today of all days.

Then he speaks and, against her will, her lips curve.

"Hello, Stinky."

* * *

 **A/N: This is another story that's been sitting on my computer for who knows how long. I think everyone in this fandom has either written or wanted to write about what happened between the epilogues. My other story Twenty-Nine was one (flippant) take on that. But I was also desperate to write a somewhat serious version, and specifically explore the idea of Sabrina's quest for Normal that'd led her to pick Bradley and stay with him all the way to the altar. What would make a person do that? After all, Sabrina doesn't always make perfect choices but she isn't cruel or selfish. So maybe Bradley wasn't Sabrina's only attempt at Being Normal; maybe she'd had to filter through others before arriving at the (mistaken) epiphany that Normal was better than Magical, and therefore for keeps.**

 **Then there was Puck, staying away for 5 years for no reason other than he fell off the face of the earth. I wasn't sure about that, either. There must have been actual history, possibly painful, and definitely messy.**

 **And finally, how does Sabrina lose Bradley, whom she surely did love in some misdirected way, and eventually end up with Puck, thus fulfilling a somewhat demented prophecy, while still being okay with her control issues?** **So many loose ends, and so many possible explanations. This story is just one of them. I hope you like it.**


	2. Part II: Intervention

**Part II: Intervention**

 _Well, look who decided to show up. Didn't you say I wasn't going to be seeing you around?_

 _Don't flatter yourself; I'm just here to pick up the pieces as always._

 _Of course you are. But that's because you broke them in the first place._

 _Did I now?_

It's interesting, she reflects as they stand face-to-face, how they could always have entire conversations with just their eyes.

Then he speaks again - "Oh, don't stop on account of _me_ ; _I_ just came to say hello,"

\- and just like that, he's trapped her.

"Sabrina? Who's this?" Beside her, Bradley tenses.

"ThisisPuck," she mutters under her breath, running her words together in an effort to get them all out before she can taste them. "Old . . . friend."

Bradley doesn't extend his hand, and stares instead at the wings.

"I take it he's immortal, too," he says unnecessarily.

The church - stunned into silence earlier - explodes into pandemonium, and Bradley doesn't wait for her answer. He gives himself instead to their guests: his agitated family and friends, and hers who are conspicuously calm - as if seeing men with wings were mildly noteworthy rather than something to doubt one's sanity by. He frowns as he notices money changing hands; _wait -_ _was this planned_?

"It's - it's an angel!" Behind him, the minister stutters in awe just before Sabrina snorts her disagreement, "Hardly." Bradley turns to her, about to say, "should we proceed?" but he can't, because there's a _flying man_ in the room and while he's seen quite a few things since meeting Sabrina, he hasn't seen anyone actually _fly_. And the thought briefly occurs to him that maybe the ushers should be showing this aerial distraction to his seat (on _her_ side of the church, obviously) but the newcomer doesn't seem interested in sitting, or in anything other than Sabrina, really, and his bride-to-be is looking at _him_ \- at the _flying man_ \- and her face is a picture.

"What should we do?" He makes himself ask instead. "My people are . . . well, they're losing it."

The flying man - _Puck_ \- at last spares him a glance, and his face is otherworldly, radiant and alive in a way that dims the room around him. "They don't know?" he inquires sharply. "About . . . us . . . about Everafters?"

Bradley shakes his head, and he wants to clarify, _But_ I _do, and_ I'm _perfectly okay with it,_ except that he feels judged under Puck's stare.

"We never told them," Sabrina speaks for him. "We didn't think they'd understand."

Puck's eyes widen, green as spring leaves. "How . . . ?" He shakes his head. "And you thought it'd work - hiding who you are? For how long exactly were you planning to drag this on?"

"What about you?" Sabrina shoots back. "Where were _you_ hiding these five years?"

"Oh, is this about me now? Well, if you must know: in a trench. Surprise! I've been at war. You remember what that's like, surely: freaking monsters coming at you left and right, fighting for your life, trying not to unwittingly hand over your kingdom to some butt-ugly low-life who got a lucky one in your back. So not exactly a lot of downtime to check my phone or log in to Facebook - war tends to mess up your priorities some. And speaking of priorities, I hope you feel honored, because I've just left _thousands_ dying on the field to crash this dig."

He smirks at the chaos around them. "Nice party, by the way. Check out the multitudes gnashing their teeth and crossing themselves like it's the end of the world. You've outdone yourself, Grimm. I couldn't have staged it better myself."

"War? With whom?" His flippancy is completely lost on Sabrina as she narrows her eyes and stares him down.

Puck laughs mirthlessly. "The Scarlet Hand isn't the only enemy in the world, FYI. Faerie's been at war for _centuries_. If we're lucky, we might get a break for oh - a decade or two before we're back out there swingin'. So no, I _wasn't_ hiding, unless you count the trenches waist-deep in mud and crap or being stuck up in a tree with mosquitoes feeding on your backside. It's not always about _you_ , Sabrina - my life, I mean."

In stunned silence, Bradley watches this exchange and even though this is _his_ wedding, _he's_ the outsider, the one standing on the fringe with suspicion gnawing at his heart and dread pooling in the deep places of his soul.

 _History. They have history_ , he realizes. _And they sure picked a hell of a time and place to thrash it out._

The minister has recovered now, and changed his mind about the "angel". He stands tall and reaches for the cross around his neck, its silver chain glinting. "Begone!" he starts and, as one, all three turn to him. "I cast you out -"

Puck's face lights in glee as understanding dawns, but Sabrina lays her hand on his arm as she lies easily to the minister. "No, Reverend. It's just a prank. He's an old friend who likes to play tricks."

This is the cue, and from among the crowd, Daphne rises from her seat, a heavy pouch in her hands, and cocks her head at their parents. Sabrina spots the movement at the corner of her eye and has barely time to register that her sister has come prepared before her attention is pulled away. Puck's eyes follow hers, taking it all in: the shrieking congregation, the befuddled groom, the rest of the Grimm family springing to their feet and readying themselves to dispense magic and sanity in a situation gone to the dogs.

His gaze returns to Sabrina, and she isn't surprised at the pity in it.

"You know," Puck tells the minister, watching the locket tremble in his hand, "there's really no need for threats - I think I've overstayed my welcome anyway. Adios, then."

Before she can react, he spins on his heel and vanishes; a split second later, a magnificent golden eagle rises through the jagged hole in the stained glass window and soars into the sky. She blinks, deaf to the reprisal of hysterical exclamations from the guests and throws a haunted look at Bradley before dashing out of the church.

While Bradley, aghast, is left to face alone the nightmare that his wedding day has become, watching his bride-to-be disappear, and beholding firsthand the incredible power of forgetful dust.

* * *

"Wait!"

Skirt clutched in her hands, Sabrina plants herself outside the church with her face turned upward and hollers, knowing he can hear her perfectly even as a speck rising toward oblivion. She doesn't care what she must look like, decked in bridal white, her face red with fury, screaming at a bird in the sky.

"Come back! You do _not_ get to leave again! We. Are. Not. Done!"

By now, she can hardly see him but she plants her feet and waits. Watches. Counts each agonizing second.

Slowly, he circles backs into view, lower, larger, until he plummets the last few hundred feet, feathers morphing into skin and dusty armor as he drops to the ground beside her. She hastily gathers her thoughts, conscious of the time - albeit short - that her family had bought them before the last of the opiated congregation regained its senses.

"We have five, ten minutes at most . . ." she begins, then stops as she sees him - _really_ sees him: the bandage around his arm just visible under the cuff of his sleeve, the ringed eyes, the lines around his mouth, the cheeks that are not so much angular as hollow. It'd all been easy to miss when she hadn't known what to expect on a face she hadn't beheld in five years.

He, in turn, takes in the sight before him, herself a far cry from the serene, starry-eyed brides who'd dreamed of this day all their lives.

"I didn't come to stop you, Sabrina; I came to wish you well."

"Your timing sure says otherwise."

"Does it? Hm. Well, you know me: just wanted to be sure I had everyone's attention."

Sabrina frowns; she's tired of games. "Why now, Puck? Why not months ago when I just got engaged? And don't pretend you didn't know. I know Daphne's been feeding you intel all this time."

"No particular whence or wherefore," Puck shrugs dismissively. "After all, this isn't the first time you've been engaged, isn't it? No reason to -"

"To think I'd actually go through with it? Are you surprised? That I'd actually, finally found someone who's okay with who I am?"

"Excuse me - _I_ was okay with who you are. I've always been okay with who you are, insanity and poor sense of judgement and all."

"Yeah, but you _left_!"

"Because _you_ wanted me to! Because I was, if I recall the words, 'a freaking security blanket no one asked for.' "

She's pretty sure she'd never included the expletive but yes, she remembers it just as plainly as it'd been yesterday.

"That was five years ago. _Five_ years. That's . . . a long time."

Her exasperation is abundantly clear but underneath that, in spite of how carefully she'd cloaked it, he hears what she's really trying to say, and suddenly, the circus behind them makes complete sense: the mortals kept in the dark as the groom sits precariously on the fence and the bride wrestles with a pain so sharp he could cut himself on it, a pain whose name he knows well because he himself is no stranger to it.

 _Hello, regret. It looks like you've found another fool to torment._

For a moment, his lips part and his eyes glint, as if this were another kind of battlefield, and he were going for the kill. Then he blinks and exhales, and when he speaks at last, he chooses mercy.

"You've got a lot to learn about immortality if you think five years is a long time. Speaking of which, what's he going to do when he gets older and you don't?"

Her defenses spike again. "We've come to terms with that."

"Yes, but _they_ haven't, have they - his family? The ones screaming their heads off? Because they don't know. Because _you're_ still hiding behind secrets."

Sabrina's eyelashes flutter against the warmth of sudden unbidden tears - either from shame or sorrow, she doesn't know and doesn't care, because both are weak.

"How many does this make, Sabrina?" Once again, not a taunt, only weariness.

"Not keeping count," she returns with her jaw set and hopes he takes the hint.

Puck pulls himself to his full height, and Sabrina notices that his body has changed - it's stronger, thicker, _different_ \- and she has an acute yearning to be eleven again, with her future unknown before her, her family his, their friendship comfortingly uncomplicated.

"You could've told me to get lost, you know; you didn't have to stop the ceremony. But you did. Maybe you need to ask yourself why. And while you're at it, figure out who you are and what you _really_ want. I've got a war to win. And _you_ have a wedding to get back to -" he raises one eyebrow in a dare, "- or maybe not."

In the silence following his words, they both notice she hasn't answered his challenge.

He turns to leave, then pauses, his gaze soft.

"You look beautiful, by the way. I'm sorry I've never told you that enough."

* * *

She doesn't recall how much time had passed, or what had transpired immediately after, only that it'd been a little like when they'd been fighting the war and a bomb had gone off so close to her that she hadn't been able to hear for days. As if she were underwater, her head in a fog, except that it'd gone on forever, and she'd been only half-aware of reality, and had to imagine the rest. She'd found herself back in her apartment, mulling over how she was dressed in jeans - _what had happened to my wedding dress?_ \- and there was Bradley in the doorway, Bradley stepping into her living room, Bradley walking toward her while she'd kept backing away, blinking at him, wondering when she'd wake up and have her world right way up again.

And then she was _telling_ him, telling Bradley-who-was-normal-and-wonderful, the words thick in her throat as she forces them out, and they sound wrong, mean a hundred different opposite things, clashing with the relentless refrain in her head: _not another one. How many? What have you done?_

It hadn't mattered; it wasn't news to him, not after he'd been the one left standing in front of the church without an explanation while she'd dragged _Him_ aside to have a heart-to-heart about who-knew-what. He'd listened anyway, even though he'd felt like he were floating out of his own body, like he were merely a spectator and not the one getting kicked between the legs. _She sounds like she's reading a script_ , he'd reflected savagely, _which she probably is, given how many times she's done this before._

But he'd been mistaken. He might not have been her first, but he didn't know know that she'd never bothered with the others; with her heart in pieces, she'd spoken just enough to distract them as the pink dust wiped their memories of her and fabricated new contexts for their lives, stranding them in a time _before_. He'd only known that he barely had his wits about him after watching the most important people in his life violated before his eyes in what was supposed to have been a sacred place, and that, from the look on Sabrina's face as she'd weighed her options, that hadn't even been the worst of it, not by a long shot.

He'd sunk into her armchair - _their_ armchair - and looked up at her when she'd finished her speech.

"What _exactly_ am I choosing?" His voice had cracked, but it'd been hard to tell if it'd been from wrath or sorrow, not when he'd been backed into a corner and offered a fool's game.

"Whether to remember me . . . or not." Sabrina had said it softly, and winced at how patronizing it sounded.

"And how would I choose that? How could I ever _not_ remember you?"

Wrath; _definitely_ wrath.

She'd hesitated before quietly admitting, "Forgetful dust. It'll be like we . . . never met."

"And why would I want that? First, you walk away and take our future - _our_ future! And now you want to take away even my _memory_ of you? Of everything we had? Of who we _are_? How callous is that?"

"I - I thought it might be easier."

" _Easier_? Easier than what?"

She'd been unable to say it: _Easier than knowing what you no longer have._

"Let's just backtrack for a minute to what this is really all about, Sabrina." Pain had replaced the wrath now and his eyes were falling out of his head as he'd gusted out his next words. "We were about to get married. As a matter of fact, we were _getting_ married. And everything was going great until that _person_ showed up. And I discover, at the _altar_ , that apparently, I'm the rebound. Which sucks by itself, but now you're telling me you're choosing him, which somehow doesn't surprise me one bit, but to make it _easier_ , you want to give me instant amnesia. Easier for whom? Not me, Sabrina. _You."_

She'd been about to deny this, to rationalize that he was missing the point: she wasn't choosing anyone, that _she_ wasn't even the one choosing - she certainly didn't deserve to, not any more; instead, _he_ was the one allowed to pick, not the least as recompense, but also for all the ways he was different than the others before him, because for him, she'd come that close to giving up her future, her _forever_.

"I'm doing this because I love you, Brad." Her garbled thoughts, ludicrous even unsaid, had rung exponentially hollower spoken out loud.

For a moment, incredulity had struck him dumb. And then - almost as if she were watching it in slow motion - his face had closed, and for the first time since she'd met him, he was completely - and terrifyingly - unreadable.

"You know what's funny?" His voice had been eerily calm. "Here's what's funny: I actually believe you. I actually believe that you love me. And that you actually thought you could go through with the whole aging-for-me business. And that you're showing me out because you're truly convinced I'll be happier in the long run without you, without having to watch you regret that decision every minute of your never-ending life. Just because you truly, sincerely, actually believe you love me. Now, let's change the plot a little bit. _This_ is _also_ how you love someone: dust me or don't dust me; I don't think it'll make a jot of difference. You can wipe my memories of us but you can't undo what we had together. Or how we've changed as people these two years. And you can't stop how, sometime in the next week, or month, or decade, I'll hear a song, or catch a whiff of something in the air, and my soul will know that it meant something once, even if my mind has no record of it, because we can never truly go back to being the people we were before we loved each other. Whether I choose to or not, I'll always remember you."

He'd stood, taken a step closer and was once again open to her; she could see the sorrow lining his eyes as his words crumbled.

"So dust me, if it will help _you_."

* * *

If she's honest, the solitude is her atonement.

And four years of it - the longest she's been alone since she'd first begun her quest for her unconditional soulmate - should've washed her conscience clean, like the dawn sky after a night of punishing rain. But she's a stranger to grace; she sees now that her lovers were experiments, lab rats expending time and passion running the labyrinth that was her heart. She also sees that the dust which so conveniently relieved them of that passion, took with it months and years of their lives, yet did nothing to dull the pain. The pain was a problem, would _always_ be a problem, she realizes; not _their_ pain, because they'll never remember, but hers, because she does.

She'd always been resourceful with pain - years in the foster care system dealing with abandonment issues had taught her a thousand creative ways to disguise it, rename it, act on it, and fold it over and over into a tiny package she could tuck in between the pages of her secret ambitions to take her sister, run and never look back. But now, her pain owns her, tells her when to rise and when to fall, how to punish herself, and - worst of all - what it needs to flourish and thus consume her.

Her mother is sympathetic and safe, and says she's allowed to change her mind even about love. So she goes to her father, because she's broken rules and she hopes he'll judge her, as he'd judged Puck when he was a boy and had made a game of overstepping every single parental boundary ever laid down in the history of the universe.

She sits with him in the home they'd built together after they'd lost and found each other again. "What have I done, Dad?" She says bitterly.

"In your life? Plenty." He refuses to be drawn in. "And imagine how much more you will do with the rest of eternity. All the choices you'll foul up, the people you'll tick off, the battles you'll lose. Just as I will. And Mom, too. And everyone else that came before and will come after us. Because we're human. That's our legacy."

"It's a lousy legacy if all we ever do is mess up."

He continues, his voice gentle, "It would be, if that were all of it. But it's also about being strong enough to be kind to others."

Sabrina's eyes fill, thinking of all the people she knows who are paragons of virtue. "What if we're not strong enough for that?"

"Then we're kind to ourselves, until we are."

"Are you mad at me?"

"No, but it shouldn't matter."

 _"_ Are you mad at Puck?"

Henry sighs, his heart breaking for the woman who still sounds like the little girl he once carried in his arms. "No," he says heavily, "but, again, it shouldn't matter."

"But you brought the dust with you. You knew I wouldn't go through with it. You -"

"No, honey," Henry had taken her hands in his, "I didn't know. _Nobody_ knew this would happen. We didn't even know if Puck knew about your wedding, or where he even was. We brought the dust with us because _we're_ Everafters and Bradley's folks aren't. We were preparing for an _accident_ , not a showdown."

 _Because we're Everafters, and they aren't. Because there's a chasm between us that can't be bridged. And yet you loved Goldie, didn't you, Dad? Even though one of you was normal and the other was -_

"Can you love someone who's wrong for you?" The words that had for weeks been turning in her mind are both relief and terror to finally let out. She fixes her eyes on the carpet as if to anchor herself against what's coming.

"Yes," her father replies. "But you try to choose the one that's _right_."

She finally looks at him, and her next question is almost a whisper.

"And how do you know which one is right?"

Henry doesn't hesitate. "You'll know because you'll like who you are with him."

* * *

Even an immortal has nowhere else to go but forward, and Sabrina wakes one morning to find that the storm in her soul has dissipated to nothing more than an insubstantial restlessness. She decides that the mourning is over and thus she throws herself back into Real Life, distracts herself with her career, her family, charitable causes, advocating for the powerless. Moves on. Finds inner peace. Even - eventually - forgives herself.

But it's not nearly enough; the trouble with forgiveness is that it begs restitution.

Which is why for four years, even while she'd mourned and healed, she takes herself out of the game in which she holds all the cards, and not just the aces. She tells herself that for each mortal infatuation she doesn't reciprocate, she saves one more shattered heart, one more life that would've been destroyed by pink oblivion and stolen time for which there is no redemption.

And _that,_ she finds comforts in the thought _,_ is her penance.

* * *

Months following the wedding-that-never-was, Puck returns. The war is ended, his wounds have healed and - at least until the next bloody skirmish - Faerie has been preserved, affording her King a little more freedom to come and go as he pleased.

And come he does, on a cool spring evening when the rains have washed the world clean and the early buds off the trees and into the gutters. He climbs the six flights of stairs to her apartment, knocks on her door, and laughs when she says she can't believe he didn't use the window, whatever happened to I Feed Off Everybody's Undivided Attention? He solemnly points out the picket line of anti-Everybody bigots on the sidewalk, and explains that he hadn't cared to offer them yet another societal undesirable to cast out of their narrow little world.

An unwilling smile pulls at her lips as she remembers her grandmother, who'd taken in any number of said societal undesirables for no reason other than that they'd mattered, and she shakes her head and lets him in. He's on her couch in two strides, demanding food, and they make a feast of rancid peanut butter and week-old crackers. They don't touch, they're careful not to ask how the other's been doing, and he's out the door before midnight, declaring he'd return when she's bothered to restock her kitchen with Actual Food That Isn't Sawdust. She sends him off with a snort and a stinging remark about manners but she doesn't miss the promise hidden in his words, and she finds to her surprise that she's not as averse to it as she'd thought.

So she keeps her pantry full, and each time he stays a little longer, and leaves before she can tire of him. He never intrudes, merely watches, as he has since they were children, though now he doesn't move to defend her or declare himself One To Be Reckoned With so as to drive away petty usurpers with flourish. He's no longer a boy; he rules as a man, and he's had his fill of power defending his kingdom in battles with far more at stake than just a reputation and a damsel's favor. Moreover, for all the incorrigible trickery of his youth, he's always understood honor; he'd extended an invitation when he'd left her at the church: only when she's found who she is and what she wants will he will step over. Until then, he will content himself to observe: the fortress she's built around the bright, rich parts of her soul and the way she's slowly fading on the inside, even as on the outside, she's stronger, harder, becoming as glass.

It eats at him, but he is immortal, and he can wait. _Even glass has a breaking point_ , he reminds himself.

One day, when they'd finished two boxes of some undefined microwavable meat product between them, she asks him why he's returned if all he does is dance on the edge of pleasantries. He's surprised to hear anger in her question, and dares to wonder if, under it, there might lurk an expectation.

"What do you mean? I've always come back."

She's livid now, as if she thinks he's playing dumb.

"What do you want?" She counters. "What could you _possibly_ want?"

His bewilderment is genuine; he can't fathom how it isn't as clear as day to anyone who'd known them, who'd watched them grow up together.

"You," he says at last.

Her shoulders heave in cynical gasps - she might look tickled, but those could hardly be considered laughter.

"You were never angry," is her cryptic comment once she's composed herself. "Disdainful, bemused, mocking, and - occasionally - completely apathetic, sure. But angry? Not even once."

"When? What are you taking about?"

She stares through her own reflection in the window as she gazes out. "All the times when I'd bought someone home: Steve, Josh, Mark . . . Bradley. . . not a trace of anger. How could you have _wanted_ me, and not been angry at _them_?"

Ah, _that_. He makes a mental note to thank Daphne for that night years ago, when Sabrina had brought home her first official boyfriend and he'd wanted to punt the loser through the window.

"No," the little girl had cautioned him, although it was in that moment that he'd realized she might not have been quite so little as he'd remembered, "if it's meant to be, getting angry won't win you any points. If it isn't meant to be, she'll lose him without anyone's help. And just between you and me, she's too good for him. But don't you dare tell her I said so."

As if her words were prophecy, the loser in question had disappeared without a trace several months later and almost overnight, so had the tension between himself and Sabrina. She'd never talked about it, and he hadn't cared to ask, but from then on, he'd learned to trust Daphne's instincts, and limit his commentary on Sabrina's choice of male company to the occasional witty aspersion on their inferior facial structure (which he'd likened to random not-so-mythological monsters) or their unprecedented inability to deliver a believable pick-up line. Most notable: one such suitor who, in his opinion, had fared so dismally in this latter area that he'd felt led to demonstrate what he'd considered far more successful ways to seduce the female species. A withering look from Sabrina had made him quickly rethink this magnanimous gesture, however, and he'd turned instead to Daphne for support, only to find her doubled up in silent laughter in the corner recliner and unable to offer him anything other than a shake of her head as she'd tried - and failed - to compose herself.

Daphne had continued to remain an emotional compass, calibrating his interactions with her sister to her moods, the specific circumstances, and whatever particular social rut in which she'd happened to be stuck. With time, the younger sister had grown to exert herself with the astuteness of an older sibling better attuned to social cues and the common-sense ways of the heart. She'd been spookily spot-on with her insights and because he was ostensibly invested in Sabrina and their alleged future, he'd learned to pay attention to the way she saw the world, and all the symptoms of her being hard on herself, so that by the time Daphne had first dropped the Bradley bomb on him, his reaction had been almost nonchalant.

"It could get serious," Daphne had confided after four months of watching her sister become increasingly high-spirited.

"Not worried, Marshmallow," he'd reassured her.

"I don't know . . . maybe this is the one, Puck. Maybe she's finally found him. I mean, _I_ even like him. And if it works out. . . well, I just wanted you to be prepared."

"But . . . ?" Even continents apart and with bad cellphone reception, Puck had picked up on her hesitation. Or maybe it'd been his own desperation, not that he'd ever admit it.

Daphne had sighed. "But . . . something's not right."

"Well, then, good thing she's got you and me. I'll have to save her from her own idiocy, the stupid doofus."

There'd been a long pause, as if Daphne were wrestling with herself, then, "Go for it," she'd encouraged him. "If anyone can bring her home, it's you. Don't let her do anything really dumb, okay? And remember, she hates being treated like a damsel, so zip it."

"On it. Howd'ja get so wise, anyway?"

"I've been watching you both since we were kids."

"Oh yeah? And your game-changing deduction is -?"

" _You_ like attention; _she_ likes control."

"What?" Puck had gawked in disbelief. "How. . . how did you figure that?"

He'd heard the sadness in her voice as she'd replied, "We all want the thing we don't get enough of from the people we want it from."

Her words had stayed with him as, for who-knew-how-long after, he'd proceeded to hatch scheme after scheme to wrest Sabrina away from each threat that strutted through her door, then inexplicably discard every single one without ever carrying it out. His brother, watching his anguish, had asked him why for pity's sake he didn't just act already and stake his claim once and for all; everyone could see how he felt about her, and was he forgetting about the future that had been foretold regarding their matrimonial nirvana? He'd remained reticent, unable to put words to it himself, let alone explain to anyone else, that bashing her on the head with the heavy fist of Destiny didn't sit well with him. Then Faerie had fallen to enemies, and his romantic priorities had abruptly been displaced for survival, dignity, honor and the lives of his people. Months had passed as though days while he fought his wars of men and monsters, before word finally reached him, carried by one of thousands of pixie messengers despatched on Daphne's wild gamble of a spell.

"If you get this, then you're still alive," the tiny creature had dutifully conveyed to him as he'd stood knee-deep in a trench filled with rainwater and the rotting bodies of his soldiers, "and you'll want to know that things are more dire than you think. Sabrina is getting married."

He'd barely heard the rest of the message - which church, what day, what time - he'd only remembered dropping his crossbow as his stomach bottomed out. He'd taken just a second to assess the killing fields around him, abandon his post and pick her over his kingdom. Again.

And now, she's asking him why he'd never gotten upset, as if pouting and throwing tantrums were in some demented way proof of his commitment to her, her value to him. He almost laughs at how comical this scene is, at how much has been lost in the translation.

"Space," he shrugs, and just manages to avoid adding _duh_. "I was giving you space. That's what girls want, right? I heard it . . . " he blinks, and remembers his vow to Daphne, " . . . on the internet."

Sabrina doesn't even sink to sarcasm. "Space for what?"

His face takes on a faraway look. Over the years, she's learned to recognize it as the precursor to some lofty comment about royalty and privileges of which one was unjustly deprived now that one was compelled to fraternize with the mortal sludge of society.

"I thought you should get to choose," he finds the words at last. "I never could, you know."

She allows her mind to comprehend what she's hearing _behind_ his words, to remember that he's more than capable of empathy - when he felt like it.

"You mean Moth," she says hesitantly. They'd never spoken about it - he'd locked that theatrical episode away along with the girl who'd killed his father - and she'd never felt inclined to press.

"And all the others before her, they were all picked for me."

"There were _others_?" Her astonishment is plain on her face.

He turns hard eyes on her. "Surely you didn't think she was the only one in my long and illustrious career as heir to the most wretched kingdom in all history? Moth was simply the most persistent. Not unlike a leech. I think her desire for the crown enabled her to endure more than the rest."

"What do you mean - endure?"

There is a glint now in his gaze. "Ah, well, I simply refused to grow up. Admit it - it was brilliant. The fathers of my hopeful brides-to-be eventually gave up waiting and scrammed. Also, I made sure my behavior was especially offensive in their presence. It worked like a charm, and was very enjoyable besides." He smirks in satisfaction. "I managed to get rid of every. Single. One."

"How many-" she fumbles for appropriate words as her curiosity conquers her mortification, "- disillusioned. . . maidens . . . are we talking about?"

"Lost count. After enough centuries of annoying encores, you don't bother."

"And every one of them chosen for you?"

Puck nods with the righteousness of a martyr but the curl of his lip conveys _I know, right?_ "Even you."

" _Me_?"

He guffaws. "Who came back from the future with a wild tale about us being married? Why do you think I was so mad? It wasn't you personally, by the way. Here I was thinking that being kicked out of Faerie and becoming a nobody in your little hick town freed me from all of it, and then you went and spilled the beans."

The laughter subsides to a half-smile dimpling his cheek. "So you see, I know how it feels. And it's crud, let me tell you. Therefore, I decided that, well, you should get to choose."

Sabrina gapes at him in stunned wonder for a moment before deflating into her familiar cesspool of blame. "I used to think it was my right, once," she admits. "But all I can think of now are the lives I've ruined."

Eyes rolling in scorn, he snorts as he waves his hand across the sky. "Poor persecuted Sabrina. Look, somewhere out there are about a hundred damsels who hate my guts. Someday, they might turn their kingdoms against Faerie in vengeance and it'll have been my fault, and they'd be absolutely right. But you know what? I don't lose sleep over it. It's a small price to pay for freedom. And so there's a handful of guys in the universe who feel the same way about you. Big deal. They'll live. The question is: will you?"

Again, she feels the stab of guilt, but she closes her eyes for a moment to collect herself.

"Actually, there's just one." _Because the rest don't remember me at all_. "And he was right: it wasn't my call to take it away from him - what we had, I mean." She looks into the distance, musing. "Apparently, I found someone after all who didn't need to be dusted."

"Or maybe," Puck is uncommonly thoughtful, "you found that _you_ were done dusting."

Sabrina locks her eyes with his. "Or maybe I'm done _hiding_."

The look Puck mirrors is as bright as his smile. "Good girl."

* * *

 **A/N: As you might've figured out by now, this isn't a oneshot. I originally wrote it as a oneshot, but it went on and on, far beyond 10K words, and began to feel like a novella. I suppose it makes sense - there's a lot of stuff to explain for the epilogues to make realistic sense, that can't be squeezed into a oneshot (unless it's comedy or satire, I mean). Anyway, this was a very hard chapter to write because of the danger of S going all out-of-character morose. Indulge me a bit?**

 **Sabrina is resourceful and resilient girl, but this is emotional trauma, and I believe people are allowed to be OOC when they're undergoing trauma. Especially when the trauma isn't merely I Dumped A Guy In Front Of Hundreds Of People Including My Own Parents but also coming to the realization that you've messed up pretty badly, and have hurt people important to you, and it might be something of a recurring character flaw rather than a one-off impulsive Bad Choice. It's a very low place to be, because she's second-guessing herself in everything, and has to learn to trust herself all over again. Artistic license aside (and I apologize if people are unhappy about the liberties I've taken with her string of paramours), this is a character flaw I picked up from the books - S's tendency to cope the best way she knew how, sometimes by running people over, and usually by taking everything on herself and shutting everyone else out, while rationalizing that she's doing this in so-and-so's best interests.**

 **She deserves redemption, of course, and she'll get it (because we love her), but for her to come full circle as a character, I thought she should fully comprehend what she'd done to Bradley, et. al,. So if you were hoping for "Ooh, Puck! Yes, I like you more than Bradley. Why didn't I realize this sooner?" sorry - maybe this wasn't what you were expecting.**

 **Finally, Henry. In a realistic world, I think you'd want your parents to weigh in when you're in trauma. We may not feel like they're on our side all the time, especially if we suspect we've done something dumb, but we secretly want their opinion anyway because it's the one that shapes us so much in our early years.** **Much as I giggle at Henry scowling at Puck's appearance at the wedding, I also think he's more than a shallow dad with a bias against Icky Boys. Plus, there's nothing that melts my heart more than a Dad-daughter thing. Aw.**

 **Okay, I'm done. Thanks for reading this (if you did). Leave a review and me know if you agree/disagree/think completely different thoughts on this! Final chapter coming up, in which we get to see P+S coming together at last (be still, thine frantic heart). See you back soon, friends!**

 **~QaS**


	3. Part III: Inauguration

**Part III: Inauguration**

And so it begins - the slow process of coming together. If time heals all wounds, then those who manipulate it as they do should easily outlast their suffering; the reality is not so, however. They may both be immortal, but his is the perspective of centuries while she lives in quantum measures: each day counts, each week starts and ends, and each year feels like the accumulation of all the ways she's changing. Each has their particular baggage, furthermore: he's eschewed entanglements without conscience and Sabrina fights her demons, whose footprints of guilt are keloids on her heart.

Even their history together - a journey barely begun before they'd slunk silently apart at some phantom crossroad - isn't nearly enough collateral upon which to begin anew a fire from smoldering embers, a pilgrimage toward a hopeful end, a clean slate (her tried-and-true modus operandi).

Alas, for the water under the bridge.

They'd been younger then, naive and presumptuous about their future. She'd been in France three months into a school exchange program, he'd stopped over in Paris en route to meeting her uncle in Vienna, and they'd spent 48 hours together, not so much falling in love as realizing that they might already have been all along. Then he'd boarded his plane, she'd returned to her cultural immersion groups, and the heady kisses and desperate caresses had eventually faded into distant memory, a dream. She'd shut them away, blaming the city lights and the serendipitous timing of seeing him when she'd been missing the familiar and his arms had felt like home.

 _Unreliable_ , she'd called it. _Swept away by emotion, just like when we were eleven and we thought our childhood would last forever._

But if her heart were a destination elusive to the casual tripper, the byways had always been known to those who truly loved her: her family and - perhaps most of all - the boy who swore he didn't but in every other aspect pledged himself to.

* * *

The entire family had been on high alert immediately after the tragicomedy of a wedding and, despite her protests, had banded together with almost militant solidarity to ensure she had someone to talk to at ungodly hours of the night and remembered to eat or even just get out of bed and into clean clothes at the start of each new day. But when those days turned into weeks and Sabrina had shown no sign of degenerating into what her brother Basil had called "a cause lost beyond even Granny's strongest brandy", they'd gladly stepped back to allow her to find her own way out of the tunnel, as it were.

To their consternation, however, that'd been as far as she'd come. Neither a total wreck nor a ray of sunshine, Sabrina's life over the ensuing months had been a middle-ground purgatory of denial and making-do. She'd claimed she was 'moving on' but none of the family could honestly claim to've noticed any actual _moving_ , at least not in the emotional sense.

"She's a Grimm, and tough as nails," Henry had assured Veronica.

"Yes," his wife's fingers had been poised over the screen of her cellphone, itching to speed dial Sabrina's number, "but she's also our daughter, and it's just hard to watch."

Daphne had been their bridge, at which no one was surprised, given the close relationship between the sisters that had grown even stronger with age.

" _Talk_ to them, 'Brina," she'd urged over video chat and grimaced at how exhausted her sister had looked. "Just so they know where you are, that you're doing okay."

"I'm fine, Daph. I'm just swamped with work. Tell them for me?" Sabrina had waved her concern aside. "Look, I'll come by next week to see everyone."

When they finally saw her ten months later at Thanksgiving - and only because it was the one day in the year when her office was closed - Daphne had had enough.

"I'm sending Puck," she'd decided.

However, while strategy had been one thing, actually securing the buy-in of its key player was another altogether. For a start, the King of Faerie was perpetually at war. Or so he'd made it seem from the excuses he'd tossed out.

"I see through you, Puck," Daphne had eventually cornered him in a coffee shop where he'd stood in jeans and T-shirt, as far from military armor as any she'd remembered on him. "You are _so not_ in the middle of a battle with a goblin horde. _You_ stepped out of your cushy office to get a latte and _I_ caught you."

"The horde was _in_ my office," he'd muttered, not looking at all apologetic. "When was the last time _you_ had your accounts audited? I swear the IRS is run by gargoyles and crones."

"Euphemisms aren't going to let you off the hook," Daphne had poked a finger in his chest. "Look, my sister, whom we both love - and don't even bother to deny it - is wasting away. She needs you."

"No, she doesn't."

"Yes, she does."

"And how would she need me? She hates being rescued. You said that yourself. I'm only doing what is least likely to tick her off, which is minding my own beeswax. And just in case you haven't noticed, _I'm_ keeping my nose out of whatever _you've_ got going on with that wooden boy -"

"His name is Pinocchio, which you very well know, and he's got nothing to do with this!"

" - so aren't you a bit of a two-face, asking me to crash a gig I haven't been invited to?"

Daphne had rolled her eyes, and Puck had winced at how easily she'd channeled her older sister in that moment. "You're scared."

Puck's eyebrows had hit his hairline.

"The. King. Of. Faerie. Is. Not. Scared!"

"Yes, you are. You're scared that she's going to tell you for the hundredth time that she's not interested, that she wants to keep searching. But let me state the glaringly obvious: Sabrina is so terrified of making the wrong choice that she'd rather not take a risk on the right one."

Puck had opened his mouth to declare Daphne an insufferable know-it-all, but she hadn't finished.

"So we're going to help her. At least, _you_ are. You're going to stand right there in front of her until she recognizes it's _you_."

Puck had raised his finger to interject, and found himself once again run over by the sheer force of Daphne's conviction.

"I'm not asking you to propose to her now, dimwit! I'm saying . . . just go spend time with her. Let her get used to you again. Heck, even play a prank on her from time to time. She's looking for normal, right? _This_ is normal - you, me, Mom and Dad, people she doesn't get to pretend around - _we're_ her normal."

Finished with her speech, Daphne had taken a step back. Puck's face, however, was still awash with skepticism.

 _Someone needs a little push,_ Daphne had pursed her lips as she assessed the situation. _You wanna talk war? Fine, let's talk war. All's fair, as they say._

"Unless . . . you're over her?" She'd delivered her master stroke. "Tell me you aren't still in love with her, and I'll never bother you again."

The change in his expression had been priceless. _Hah. Don't_ you _look like you're about to throw up._

"Well," Puck had sourly conceded, "Given that we do have a prophecy to fulfill at some point before the world ends, that moron _is_ taking her own sweet time to reach the surface."

Daphne had exhaled with exhaustion. "And . . . I lied. Sometimes she totally _does_ need rescuing. So go save her; it's what you do best."

* * *

After months of inviting himself into her home (and kitchen), he turns up at her door one evening and doesn't step over the threshold. Instead, he postures with his hands on his hips and barks at her like a scolding governess.

"You need to get out. Staying indoors and eating Cheetos with salsa is lower than pond scum in the food chain. Also, I've been craving a good burger and I know even without checking that you don't have that in this dig. Let's go."

It takes her a full second to translate his remarkable announcement into what is - might very well be - a date. She falters, anxiety spiking at the significance, the protocols.

"I don't even buy Cheetos," she offers weakly, just to say something.

" _Metaphor_ ," Puck complains with practiced umbrage, but stands carelessly, waiting. "Besides, this is New York City, where even the street fairs set gastronomical trends for the rest of the world. So it's doubly wrong to be eating out of a snack cupboard 24/7."

Sabrina continues to flounder, citing excuses - finishing a report, feeling tired, preferring to order in - but he will have none of it.

"You need to get out," he enunciates slowly, as if to a child.

She hesitates a second longer in her entryway, then throws caution to the wind and steps out, hugging herself with hunched shoulders. Neither is dressed for a night on the town, but they they walk the High Line toward her favorite museum regardless, stopping on the way for a stand-up dinner at the artisan carts lining the boulevard. He pays for the burgers, she insists on splurging on organic gelato, and they finish their respective cups without sharing or swopping flavors like the teenaged and yuppie couples ten-deep in a crowd behind them. They talk about work - hers defending clients in property matters; his rebuilding his father's vision for an unstable Fae empire. They try to one-up the other with the more imposing responsibility, the more pitiful beneficiary, the less promising outcome, but she's surprised to realize that despite their different worlds, they share a passion for the powerless and wonders if, perhaps, they're more alike than she'd thought.

When they're a block from the museum, there's a slow-moving line winding around the corner. She turns away in disappointment and berates herself for forgetting it's Free-Entry-After-Seven-Day, but he stops her with a challenge, "Giving up so easily? That's not like you. Besides, where's your spirit of adventure?"

"Left it at home, along with my common sense, apparently. And please don't say you're planning to pull rank and jump the queue," she warns him. "Even for free admission, that's just. . . tasteless."

"You aim too low," he admonishes as he pulls her around the back of the building, wraps an arm around her and lifts her into the sky. She swears the eyes of the city are on them as they land on the roof plaza where the museum patrons are posing for photographs against the sunset dipping into the Hudson River.

"What if people saw us?" She chides, eyeing the rooftop gardens of numerous apartment buildings scattered below them, hosting twilight parties of laughing neighbors armed with flutes of champagne and killer heels.

"Lucky for them that we put a little excitement in their evening, then," he answers, unfazed. "Look at the poor fools scrounging scraps on toothpicks. Whoever cut the thrill factor must've also slashed the catering budget."

"This is Manhattan! People here _like_ parties that way! Not every party has to have a catastrophic natural disaster on the program!"

"The ones worth going to, do. Anyway, now we're on the roof, we can get into this place top-down. Feel free to thank me for saving you a heckuva wait _and_ a ton on tickets! Come on!"

She fights a smile at how he's missed the point. "You do know that that's what ' _Free_ Entry After 7 pm is about, right?"

His brow creases as he finally catches up. "Wait . . . we're _not_ actually breaking any rules?"

The smile wins.

"Dang."

"Losing your touch, hotshot." She pulls him through the doors that lead back inside the museum and drags him down the stairs to the displays while he provides an extremely disrespectful commentary on the exhibits they flit past. She shushes him and calls him a liar and name-dropper; he retorts by reeling off scandalous trivia about the creators of the various installations. She's about to start a fight with him when the curator, who'd been listening with sagging jaw, clears her throat and says, "Er, actually, that _is_ true. It's a little known fact that Sidney Sorensen did indeed torture his six wives in that. . . um. . . particular manner. Your knowledge of art history is surprising, young man."

"I'm not that young," Puck scoffs imperiously, "and Sidney _Sadistic_ Sorensen would've continued his illustrious - ha, pun! - career with Wife Number _Seven_ had my father not had him beheaded; Number Six just so happened to be my fourth cousin, you see. She was cursed from birth, that Amelie, but it's hard to say if she or her demented husband were the more unlucky in this instance. Now, my aunt -"

"Aaaaand we really should get going," Sabrina interrupts hurriedly, adding with absolutely no sincerity whatsoever, "it was nice talking to you!" as she pulls Puck away and into the elevator while the stupefied patrons continue to gape.

"Seriously?" She stares him down once they're alone.

"What? It's all true. You know I don't lie. And they got the dates wrong in that . . . that bit of stuff on the wall about his life - "

"It's called a label," Sabrina adds helpfully.

"Whatever. The point was: that loser didn't die when he was 73 like it said - he was, like, four hundred years old when his head rolled."

"Sidney Whatsisface was an _Everafter_?"

"Duh!"

"An Everafter serial killer. Wow. And Oberon actually beheaded him?

"Technically, his goons did, and brought his head back to Father on a garden stake like a lollipop. But yeah. Moral of the story: you don't mess with the King of Faerie." Puck yawns, growing bored of the conversation. "Okay, how many more of these pictures and stuff do you want to look at? Or can we go now?"

"Well, you've just killed any interest I've ever had in this museum," Sabrina sighs. "And I really liked coming here."

"A shameful fact for which _you_ should have _your_ head examined. This place is filled with lies! Didn't we just establish that at least half the artists here are hiding behind bogus identities? I mean, I get it if someone has a really boring life and you make up some exciting fake backstory instead, but this is the other way around! And admit it - my version of Sidney Sadistic Sorensen was way more fascinating than that lame stuff they wrote about his forty-seven grandchildren who were all geniuses and aspired to paint like him. Makes it all the more sinister now that you know what he _actually_ did with his paintbrushes, eh?"

"Stop," Sabrina shudders. "Thanks to you, I don't want to look at a paintbrush _ever_ again. Ugh, Puck. Why is it that we can never talk about normal, peaceful, happy things? It's always war and death and pain and somebody being under a horrible spell for years and years."

"We're Everafters," Puck says in a sepulchral tone. "Ours is a long and bloody history."

Any comeback Sabrina might've wanted to lobby at him dies in her throat as she registers this. Her own history might be limited to a meager two-plus decades but with her future stretching far ahead, what kind of stories might fill the pages of her long immortal life in years to come?

Puck slings his arm around her shoulders as the elevator doors spring open.

"Night's still young, bloody Everafter lass," he hisses ominously in her ear before declaring in his normal voice, "and I'm _starving_. Let's get more food. And while we're at it, let's also stock up at the supermarket. Last time we were at your place, you only had six kinds of chips, and no decent party offers fewer than ten."

Three hours later, they're laden with grocery sacks and standing outside her building - and Sabrina realizes with dismay that she'd left her keys in her apartment.

Puck shakes his head at her. "Somebody left her brain out to dry. It's what I said earlier: you need to get out more, Grimm, if you can't even remember to grab your keys when you leave. Practice makes perfect, although, really, it's not rocket science: go out, grab keys, slam door. Repeat. Or if that's too hard, you could've just let me put a spell on your door so it lets you in with a kiss or something."

"Shut up. I wasn't expecting to go out tonight, that's all. You . . . surprised me. _Now_ what do we do? It's 1 am and there's no doorman after midnight."

"Tsk. Useless. Gimme all the grocery bags. Okay, now put your arms around me."

Sabrina swallows and obeys. Puck sighs quietly as she stands stiffly against him, her eyes darting to the stars, the road, the random bus rumbling by - everywhere but where his are, watching her. His mood sobers as he realizes how much more patient he still needs to be, how much longer this journey is than he'd anticipated. _But she's worth it_ , he resolves, and when he gruffly instructs her to hold on and not let go, he doesn't miss the irony that is his plea.

They rise six floors on the steady beat of his wings and hover long enough outside her window for her to climb through it.

"Thanks," she says as he hands her the shopping. "You've done this twice already tonight. We're lucky no one spotted us. Someday someone will, and it'll be all over the internet and they'll hunt you down."

"Is that concern I hear? Aw, how touching."

"Seriously, Puck!"

He lowers himself onto her windowsill and sits half-in and half-out of her room. "Let them try. I've lived and ruled the skies for thousands of years and no one's ever tried to take me on. I'm not afraid. Besides, it's a lousy kind of life if we're always hiding, isn't it?"

The look he casts her is both mischievous and kind, and it softens the meaning in his words. But she carries them in her heart long after he's launched himself into the night and she's left in her apartment that feels suddenly and strangely empty without him.

* * *

As if an unspoken moratorium had inexplicably been lifted, he returns two weeks later to drag her to a production on Broadway that the critics had ostensibly called 'a pretentious adaptation of a classic and much-misunderstood tale'. She's only half-surprised to discover, upon arriving at the theater, that it's A Midsummer Night's Dream: The Urban Musical. And not at _all_ surprised that, despite Puck's pessimistic forecast, the reviews are nothing but stellar.

"Why do I suspect that the only critic that slammed this was you?" She asks him as they stand reading the posters and gawking (to be fair, _she'd_ gawked; he'd just made gagging noises) at the star-studded cast. "And why, if you thought this was so horrible, did you even want to come see it?"

"To mock everyone, of course." He grabs her arm and pulls her through the curtain. "Apparently, the guy who plays me can't even fly."

"Because he's _human_ ," Sabrina reasons in exasperation.

Puck is adamant. "All the more reason to fire the casting director."

When the show is over, Sabrina's amused at how much she'd enjoyed it, even with Puck's whispered contributions of 'alternative dialogue' and some of the most inappropriate lyrics she'd ever heard in her life. She'd forgotten how witty he could be, and how easily he could make her laugh, _really_ laugh; she'd had to bite her hand several times to stop from guffawing out loud. His sarcastic commentary had continued unabated throughout, except during one scene near the end when Oberon had gently embraced Titania and praised the beholden sprite that was Puck's namesake, for a job well done. Abruptly shedding his earlier flippancy, Puck had watched this interaction in stony silence and with his back ramrod straight. Something had thawed in Sabrina's heart at the sight, and she'd laced her fingers through his in the dark, wanting to be for him in that moment just a little of what he'd always been for her for as long as she could remember. Then she'd realized what she'd done, and had sat through the remainder of the songs with her heart in her ears, aware that she was trembling as if no other boy had ever held her hand before this.

As the curtain falls, Puck turns to her. "Not even close," he scoffs. "And it's obvious that I'm _so_ much better looking."

She's all ready to take him down a notch when the lights blaze and she finds herself blinking at his face and wondering, for the first time in years, if she might just want to spend all eternity with that view.

And it doesn't escape her that her hand is still in his, and neither has moved to let go.

* * *

Other outings follow, interspersed with lazy evenings in her apartment watching Netflix, dissecting Everafter politics or complaining about work (she feels pressured to do more; he thinks it should be eternally outlawed, along with polyester jumpsuits and diet burgers). Insatiably driven to augment these discussions with victuals, they order in, take out, or simply clean out her cupboards and throw together combinations of meals that are untraditional at best. They even attempt cooking - once - but it ends in disaster when they can't discern if the flavor of green spaghetti is spinach or month-old mold, after which they mutually agree that they're better off leaving all future culinary exploits to the professionals; her salary, if not also his inheritance, could surely guarantee that they never had to prepare a meal for themselves for the rest of their lives.

From this, a pattern slowly emerges: he keeps his appearances conscientiously irregular; she learns to be neither surprised by them, nor disappointed without. Somewhere in the middle of his comings-and-goings, she recognizes the sly pull of _expectations,_ and she wonders what it means that she hopes she isn't the only one feeling it. She never actually says the word out loud, but it eventually finds its way into her thoughts, their banter, and between the lines of her exchanges with her family.

 _Dating_.

She swears she doesn't recall who'd been the first to let slip, but one day, she's stunned to hear it from - of all people - Mustardseed.

The Prince had unexpectedly called her one midsummer evening about six months into this unpredictable social experimentation. Puck had told her earlier that he'd be by to raid her fridge but it'd been hours since and she'd figured it'd been an empty threat.

"Puck asked me to let you know that he is very sorry but he will need to reschedule your date for tonight," Mustardseed had informed her in his no-nonsense way. "He's . . . indisposed."

 _Date._ It takes her a full second to let it sink in. She quickly recovers, deciding on flippancy so the Prince will not guess how much it's unsettled her.

"Puck would never say that. Indisposed, my foot. Where is he? Fighting some new war that conveniently materialized out of nowhere? Just like him to double-book himself. What did he actually say?"

"Well, his original message was rather too facetious to repeat, so I took the initiative to ah. . . convey the general gist."

"Okay, where is he? And what's he done this time?"

A heavy sigh. "Languishing in the healer's chambers with half his face burned off."

" _What?_ What happened to him?"

"Well, there _was_ a war -"

"War! I was right. It's always war! Or if it's not war, it's some other excuse."

"He thought you might say that. He also said he didn't want you feeling . . . cheated that there was only half of his uh. . . glorious beauty to behold and would rather postpone the occasion until he was um. . . whole again, that he might render you properly speechless with his -"

Sabrina gags. "Enough, Mustardseed. You just enable him - you and Titania. What an idiot. I'm coming to see him right now. He doesn't get to back out of a - a - date just because he's dying."

She curses herself for tripping over the word.

"Actually, he isn't . . . _really_ dying." The Prince sounds like he'd rather be flayed alive than have this conversation.

"Fine, he's just half-beautiful and embarrassed about it. Big brat."

"Furthermore, he gave strict orders not to let you in bec -"

Sabrina makes a rude sound. "Tell him I'll bring a tribute. Kings always let visitors in who bring tributes."

* * *

It'd been years since she was last in Faerie (in her defence, Puck hadn't stayed in town much and she'd had no reason to visit his kingdom even with him there in it) but she was still surprised by the changes she was seeing. Gone was the Golden Egg pub that'd been the anteroom to the other-dimensional castle where he reigned as King; in its place was a quiet lounge - a waiting room in which patrons sat visiting over brightly-colored beverages in crystal chalices. She wonders what had happened to the matronly bartender and her raucous clientele, but there is no one who looks friendly enough to ask.

When half an hour has passed without anyone appearing to receive her, she stops a fairy carrying a tray piled high with some exotic fruit on his way to serve a table.

"How do I get in to see Puck, I mean, His Majesty?" Sabrina inquires, and doesn't miss his look of shifty discomfort.

The fairy points to one of four doorways leading out. "That way," he says cautiously, "although someone will come to escort you presently. While you wait, would you care for -"

"I highly doubt that, but thanks, I think I can find my own way," Sabrina stops him, and marches off, deaf to her informant's protests.

Once through the door, she winds her way though corridors of dark walnut and lined with wall sconces, her heels sinking into the plush carpet underfoot. While she strides, she dials Mustardseed's number on her phone.

"I'm here. I got through security easily. No wonder you're always getting invaded - any random person could walk right in, even someone who's apparently been blacklisted, as I clearly have. Nobody I've met will tell me where Puck is. They all look frightened and run away."

"Stay where you are," Mustardseed sounds discernibly relieved. "I'm coming to get you. It's actually good that you're here. Puck . . . isn't doing so well."

Sabrina's heart drops and she prepares to fire off questions at the Prince, but he's hung up.

When she sees Puck, he's lying on his back on a flat bed in the healing chambers. These rooms at least are familiar - more than a decade ago, she'd spent two days in a cocoon suspended from this very ceiling. From the neck down, he's wearing the soft, dark armor of all Fae warriors, but bandages swath his face and he hasn't moved since she'd entered. Without seeking permission to approach, she goes to his bedside and kneels so that her face is close to his.

"This had better not be a prank, or I'll kill you myself."

"Hey," he says in a rasp, and opens bloodshot eyes at her. The skin that rings them is raw and she can see charred patches disappearing into the layers of gauze. All the insults she'd prepared to launch at him instantly vanish.

"What happened to you?" Her voice is haunted.

Puck wheezes in and out for several counts before he's able to speak again. "Fire."

"I can see that, but -"

"There was a burning town," Mustardseed supplies softly, almost reverently, "and children trapped in a temple. There weren't enough soldiers to save them all, so he went in, too. Then the roof fell in."

Sabrina inhales sharply.

"We lost five of the children and all the soldiers, who threw themselves over Puck to save him."

Puck grunts and they both turn in his direction. "Fifty-two," he whispers.

"Fifty-two children lived," Mustardseed translates and were she not quite so horrified, Sabrina might've smiled at the pride in his voice. She lifts her hand to take Puck's. Her throat is suspiciously tight.

"You can't go a day without trying to save someone, huh?"

His eyes crinkle as he tries to smile, then squeeze shut in pain. His fingers tighten around hers instead. "Sorry . . . date. . ."

"Well," Sabrina says, and concentrates hard on keeping her voice light. "Seeing that you can't even get out of bed without your face falling off, I'll let you off this time. I brought food but I guess they'll have to wait till you're all better."

"What . . ." Puck strains to look.

"No, no, don't get up! It's Dorritos - nacho cheese, of course - and cupcakes from Magnolia. Yes, _the_ Magnolia Bakery. I got the last four in the display. Snatched them from under the nose of some paralegal from Anderson and Fischer. You know, that firm I was telling you about that kept stealing our clients? Anyway, I heard him bargaining with the guy behind the counter to split them with me. Claimed Anderson himself sent him to pick up tea for the partners. Huh! As if. Which lawyer in this part of town has time to eat regular meals, let alone tea? Anyway, he didn't stand a chance."

"What . . ?" Puck repeats.

"Caramel pecan," Sabrina smugly announces, and Puck moans. "Your favorite. Maybe we can chuck one in a blender and feed it to you through a straw?"

Puck blows a raspberry at her, and she grins in relief. Perhaps, if the fire hadn't taken his sense of humor, the rest of him would come back to her, too.

* * *

Puck spends the rest of the day in a cocoon, and Sabrina decides to wait in Faerie for his grand emergence. She's hit by an unpleasant sense of deja vu: not only her own convalescence in the eggplant-shaped vessels following a nasty bout of poisoning, but also Puck's near brush with death when a jabberwocky had viciously taken his wings. His prognosis this time, however, seemed to be far more positive: the healers had expected him to be out by sunrise, which had surprised her, but she'd supposed that regenerating skin was a much simpler process than regrowing entire appendages. Still, she'd wondered at the power of Puck's magic, if it could restore him overnight from an injury that would've taken a human months, if they'd lived at all.

She makes herself comfortable in the armchair in Puck's bedroom, propping her laptop on her knees as she updates her case notes. On the table, the cupcakes sit in their box next to the unopened bag of chips, but she's accepted Mustardseed's offer to order in sushi and spring rolls instead of dining with the rest of the court. The Prince, sensing that his brother was out of danger, had left to convey his condolences to the families of the lost soldiers, and she's alone in the spacious suite with Puck's pulsating cocoon bobbing in the corner by the window. In the companionable silence, it's easy to imagine he's merely napping on the settee while she works, and even easier to forget that this is a castle - and the _King's_ personal chambers, no less.

She hears a noise and looks up from the screen to find the cocoon hovering above her. A frightening memory suddenly resurfaces from her previous encounter with the vessels and she scoots out of the chair and edges away.

"Don't even think it! You're not spraying me with that horrible gunk again," she warns the cocoon. "Look, I'm staying right here tonight, so you know exactly where to find me, right? No need to panic and get all smelly and violent. I mean it, Puck! Spray me and you die. I'll run you through myself with that poker over there."

The cocoon pulses indignantly at her and then floats away. Sabrina lets out a quick breath and resumes typing, stealing occasional glances at the cocoon but it seems to be content where it is. When her eyes start to flutter shut, she decides she's done, turns off the lights and curls up on the bed. In the darkness, Puck's healing vessel is a giant nightlight that casts a soft purple glow from its corner. She yawns, feeling sleep reach for her. She refuses to let herself think of the implications: that this is Puck's bed, and they're alone in his room, even though he's in a coma and safely incarcerated in an alien blimp.

"'Night, Stinker. See ya in the morning," she softly calls out, and smiles to herself when the cocoon remains unnaturally still, almost as if it were sulking.

But minutes after she fades into oblivion, it drifts over to the bed and stops directly above her, like a pillar of amethyst fire watching over a sojourner on her way to the promised land.

* * *

Sabrina wakes to a pair of green eyes and a smirk, and the smirk is just as wicked now as when its owner was an imp of a boy armed with prank supplies and the world's most demented sense of fun.

" _Someone's_ been sitting in my chair," he murmurs, his eyes flitting accusingly to the stack of legal folders sharing the seat with her laptop.

"Hey, you're awake! When did -"

" _Someone's_ been eating my food." He interrupts, holding up chopsticks.

"That's not _your_ food. That was takeout from -"

"And _someone's_ been sleeping in my bed. And is still in it!"

Sabrina sits up and rubs the sleep from her eyes before giving him the once-over. He's lounging on his side on the bed next to her, his head resting on his hand as he watches her. There's not a mark on his skin, and his expression bears none of the acute discomfort of the day before. She resists the sudden urge to reach out and touch him.

"You're welcome for keeping you company while you were in your weird purple bubble," she scowls instead. "How long have you been lying here anyway, to've come up with all that?"

He laughs and flops onto his back. "I punched my way out just after sunrise. Boy, did it feel good to stretch. I don't recommend getting burned. It hurts more than getting your wings ripped off, let me tell you."

"Good to know. By the way, why on earth are you still going to war over boundary issues?" Seeing his eyes widen in surprise, she elaborates, "Mustardseed told me that's why you went to war. That's so archaic. Why not settle it the bloodless way - in court?"

"Yeah, like the law courts don't suck every ounce of blood out of you, too. The paperwork alone will drain you dry. And the other kingdoms don't care about the law, duh. They just want land, and they'll take it every which way they can. If I don't fight back, my kingdom is as good as hijacked."

She smooths down her hair and clothes, sorely regretting that she hadn't changed out of them the night before, then slides her legs over the edge of the mattress and launches herself off. "There are better ways to s-"

And lands face-down with a squelch in a mass of something cold and slimy.

"Oops," Puck says, grinning over the side of the bed. "You just found my weird purple bubble. I was so hoping you would before the servants came by."

"This feels disgustingly familiar."

"Don't remind me. I've never forgiven myself for forgetting my camera the last time. Today, though, I came prepared." He pulls out his phone and gleefully snaps a picture. "This is _so_ going viral on Facebook."

* * *

She spends the day in Faerie, and tells herself it's because she wants to make sure he's really okay, and not at all because she actually wants to be with him in his home. She feels as if everyone is watching them, and she bristles at the implications. Everything comes to a head when, after dinner and before she leaves, he gives her the grand tour: dining hall, ballroom, gardens, barracks, the corridor of offices and - their last stop - the throne room. She's surprised there even is one - with her impression of Faerie being run by Oberon like a worker's union, an actual physical seat of power seems out of place.

"We've always had thrones," Puck airily informs her when she asks if this were a new addition.

"No one's ever shown me this room before."

"Because there wasn't anyone in it worth seeing before. Until now. Look - that one's mine."

Sabrina eyes the ornate wooden structure, its carved back towering above them, its seat a luxurious-looking fabric that doesn't appear to have been sat on in a very long time. It doesn't match Puck's personality in the least.

"And that -" Puck points dismissively to the equally ostentatious-looking chair beside his, "is yours."

Sabrina almost misses it at first, distracted by the ticking in the room that she attributes to the grandfather clock against the wall. Then it hits her like a sledgehammer, and she frowns at Puck - is he joking?

But no - he's completely serious; matter-of-fact, even. "I think it's hideous, myself, but Mother was Queen, so she got to pick what she wanted. We can have it reupholstered in a color you like. Blue, maybe? That shade of purple always struck me as looking like a bruise gone bad."

"Mine?" Sabrina manages to squeak out.

"That's what I said. Try to keep up."

"Why?"

Puck's stare is filled with challenge. "Well, because if _I_ have to sit there, I'm jolly well going to have company. I figured it won't be half as bad if I have someone to poke fun at visiting dignitaries with."

"No, I mean . . . what do you . . . Puck, are you . . . _proposing_?"

" _Proposing_?" Puck laughs uproariously, as if she'd made a joke. Then, quite suddenly, his face smooths into sobriety as he continues. "Proposing would mean I wanted an answer now. No, Sabrina, I'm _not_ proposing. I'm telling you that when you're ready -" he swallows, and says the last words very quietly, "- you'll know where to find me."

"I - I -" she stutters, trying to prioritize which of her protests to lobby first at him, but Puck has deliberately turned his back, and his dismissal feels like a trap.

"I don't want to be queen," she says finally, desperately, and notices that Puck, with his back to her, has frozen where he stands.

"Why?" His voice is so soft but she would've heard it even if it'd been only a thought in his head. How would she even begin to explain all the ways it doesn't sit well with her: just the idea of _ruling,_ for one, not to mention ruling a _nation_ , and - the ultimate can of worms - ruling a nation not of her _world_?

He turns at last, and when she sees his expression, she understands in an instant that none of those reasons were even on his radar.

"Do you not want to be queen," he begins, halts, and then wills the rest of his question out, "or do you not want to be _my_ queen?"

She falters, confused. "I didn't think there was a difference."

His face changes; hardens. "Do you still hate us so much? By the stars, Grimm, _you're_ an Everafter, too, in case you've forgotten!"

"I don't! Hate them, I mean. Not anymore. You know that. Look, I get that your history goes way, way back, and the old ways are a huge deal but frankly, I don't care much for the old ways. They don't work now, not in the city, not when we're always crossing over into each other's worlds. All these wars you're fighting, for instance. It's not how we protect land these days - we use the law and mediation and stuff like that. Plus you're risking lives when you send them to fight - yours, too."

"It's how we've always defended our land and who we are!"

"I know. I know." She nods impatiently at his stubbornness. "And I. . . but . . . . I can't - I don't _want_ to be part of that."

"You don't know what it's li-"

"Maybe not in Faerie," she concedes, "but I _do_ know, Puck. I fought a war, too, remember? For the right to be free, to live where we wanted, to - to be with people who were different from us?"

"And we _won_ that war." His voice is cold.

"Yes, but the _cost_ , Puck!"

"The cost was _worth_ it! Because of _that war_ , I could finally leave the barrier, return to Faerie . . . and come back to _you_."

He falls silent, his face set with frustration when she doesn't respond.

"There are wars in your world, too," he grinds out, "and some of them were for even stupider reasons than this. Maybe you should take a look in the mirror, Grimm. You're one of _us_ , like it or not."

He turns to glance at the two thrones, silent sentinels of ancient history and immeasurable power.

"But perhaps you're right about those - maybe Faerie really only needs one throne. I'll have the other one chopped into firewood or something. Golden oak is so last season anyway."

He marches out of the room before she's had the time to compose her defense.

* * *

 _You're an Everafter, too._

For days after, she's unable to move past his words. It's not the fact that she's immortal, _different_. Or even that he'd imagined it were something she could ever forget.

 _Too._

 _Also. Along with. A part thereof. Kindred._

Something comes back to her, something her grandmother said after she'd been freed from the madman who'd betrayed and used her during the war: "Those who least want power are the ones best suited for it. Use yours well. We're Grimms, and we have so much to do."

 _Oh, Granny. I wish you were still here. We won the war only because you believed in fighting for the ones who couldn't. What I wouldn't give right now for your wisdom, and your faith in me, in who I've always been and what I -_

Sabrina stops, and freezes with the strangest sensation of pieces falling into place inside some catacomb of her soul. Outside, the world presses on but she's stuck in time, borrowing from the past and wondering if the future might've just been blown wide open, with her questions coming full circle and their answers like a prayer carried in on the wind of change.

* * *

She returns to Faerie with a completely new disposition; gone is the hesitation, the feeling of otherness she'd worn like armor over her crisp business suit and spotless court shoes when she'd snuck in to see Puck just weeks before. Now she's in jeans and a sweater, carrying a leather briefcase that looks conspicuously out of place sitting on the carpet beside her sneakers as she waits in the anteroom for the herald to announce her.

She's not surprised to be told, once again, that His Majesty Is Busy With A Matter Of Military Importance.

"Of course he's at war," she snaps at the fairy landed with the misfortunate task of breaking the news to her. "That's why I'm here. Now either bring me to him or move aside so I can get there myself."

She finds him with his warriors, preparing for battle.

"Call it off." She gets straight to the point.

"Oh, it's you," Puck returns, taking in her outfit in one glance. "Didn't you get my text? Afraid dinner and a movie are out of the question tonight. Bit busy here, as you can see. Raincheck?"

"I'm not here for a date, although I _am_ getting very tired of you canceling on me last-minute for some life-and-death thing. I came to fight this war with you. "

The soldiers within earshot straighten with interest.

Puck looks mildly irritated. "Um, it's Monday. Don't you have a job to be at?"

"I quit."

"Quit? Why? You were about to be made partner!"

"I decided that this is where I needed to be."

"Aw. I'm touched. Unfortunately, all the slots are filled," Puck gestures to his soldiers and glares when he notices they're doing a very poor job of hiding their smiles. "Besides, I don't see you bearing arms."

"Here's my weapon." Sabrina flips open her briefcase, pulls out a legal pad and shoves it in his face. "Show me where I can access -" she hesitates, wondering what sort of laws Faerie and its neighboring kingdoms might hold to, " - anything that might count as a legal document about . . . well, anything."

The soldiers start chuckling in earnest, at which Puck scowls, but Sabrina is undaunted.

"Terms have changed, hotshot. Look, I'm not saying it's definitely going to work. For all we know, these enemies you're so eager to fight might indeed be benighted barbarians who'd as soon chop my head off as listen to me. I'm just asking for the chance to try something other than mass slaughter, so that maybe some of these soldiers will be alive to go home to their families at the end of the day. If it fails -" she inhales, " - I'll suit up and lead your army into battle myself; I've done it before. Either way, we're not letting Faerie fall to some idiot who thinks he can overstep his boundaries whenever he feels like it."

Not a sound is heard from Puck's army as they wait as one for their commander to make his call.

A second goes by, and then another, while Puck stands with set jaw and crossed arms. Sabrina lays her hand on one of those arms, and her voice is gentle now, coaxing. "C'mon, Puck. How about it? Tell your men to stand down. Then let's you and me go win this war once and for all." She grins suddenly. "Just like old times."

For an instant, his face remains stone. Then a smirk tugs at his lips.

"Just like old times, huh?"

Without warning, he pulls her against him and kisses her, right in front of his army, amidst whoops and catcalls and the clapping of steel against iron.

She's too stunned to react, and she's still blushing when turns back to his warriors, lifts his hand to dismiss them and call for a white flag of truce to be sent with an advance party in their place. But much later, when they've returned from the frontline with a blood-signed peace treaty and legal documents stipulating the final and non-negotiable political boundaries of the nations bordering Puck's kingdom, she stands together with him once more, alone and inches apart in the throne room where it'd all begun.

She's petrified because she's so used to pushing him away, but he's steady as he holds her within a hair's breath of his lips, hands light on her waist, and waits. There isn't an audience now, nor is it a desperate last stand, or even the awkward fumblings of boyhood from a long time - and many lovers - ago. He's waited years for this, and he's not so far gone, nor so naive as to presume it is the same sport, to be won by the same rules.

So he lays his cards on the table: _I'm game if you are_. And she reminds herself to breathe, forces herself to unwind in his arms. _Lean in_ , she wills him in her mind. _Lean in and take me once and for all_ , _like you did earlier, or when we were children and I hadn't realized how much I'd wanted you, would always want you._

Still he doesn't, blinking gold over green at her instead, the tip of his nose a ghost of a caress, his heart a steady drum. She wonders how long he's willing to stand like this, a razor-width away from consummation.

 _Forever_ , she realizes. It is, after all, what they're made of: time and space. And time is on their side.

 _Space_ , however . . .

So she lifts her lips to his. Senses his body still. Hears the drum pound. Traces the curve of his smile with hers. And remembers at last how _right_ feels.

* * *

 **A/N: Sorry for leaving you hanging after the last chapter! I ended up rewriting this entire chapter because the original draft was just so wrong. I hope you like this final version (you get 8.5K words to make up for my lateish update)! I know I've deviated from the tone and pace of the first two chapters which were sorta melancholic and legato, but I figured - well, it's banter, and it's P and S finding themselves (which we all know are anything but melancholic-and-legato) so maybe you guys will forgive the inconsistency, if it feels that way at all, I mean. Next chapter is the epilogue!**

 **Also, did anyone get the kiss scenario? Hint: replace soldiers with chimps. Hahahaha!**


	4. Epilogue

**EPILOGUE**

She marries him in his kingdom, by the same river that had taken his father and left him his crown. Against the brilliant ambers and crimsons of the fall leaves, before a gathering that watches with bated breath, he pledges his hand, heart, and life to her. His speech - the practiced elocution of regality - is flawless; she, uncomfortable with rhetoric, stumbles over her vows, although when she swears to forsake all others, her voice does not once waver. Then, at the end, as she says _as long as we both shall live,_ her words are a whisper underneath her tears, and he is careful as he wipes them away, because he understands what they have cost her. When the blessing of the assembly is invited forth, there is a moment when she thinks her memories will overwhelm her, when she's paralyzed with sudden trepidation that karma will surely despatch a hurricane, or one of Puck's spurned suitors from his colorful past. Or even that she might wake and find it'd only been imaginings, because it's surreal enough to gaze upon the faces around her - faces out of storybooks and impossible daydreams - let alone the one before her, who is both legend and soulmate.

But her apprehension is unfounded, for nothing interrupts, no one intervenes and there are no masks among the crowd of witnesses spread over the grassy bank, who cheer as he takes her face in his hands and kisses her. Humans rise to their feet alongside creatures of feather and fur, scale and gossamer silk, every eye alike reflecting the elation in the air.

The forgetful dust has been left at home; there is no need for it when they are all friends here and no aisle divides them.

She's still pensive when the music begins, heralding the dancers who spin like liquid color in the river, through the leaves, across the sky. Wings and fins and feet move in intricate harmony - it is a revel like no other and all that is beautiful has come out to celebrate today. They're paying tribute to their King and his bride - to _her_ \- and she can't wrap her mind around everything, feels light-headed as her father takes her hand and guides her in dance as he's done in life. She's overcome, can hardly breathe, wondering who _on earth_ could've imagined a reality like this.

Then she steals a glance at Puck leading his mother in time to the music as pixies flutter around them, scattering cake crumbs like confetti in a whirlwind while shapeshifting children give chase on diaphanous wings. _Mother-in-law_ , she tests the unfamiliar words in her mind. _Husband_. _Family_.

This _is who I am._ This _is normal._

 _And every bit as insane as it looks._

She grins at last, feeling a weight lift, sensing the world rush back to her like an errant tide drawn home. Her father doesn't miss the change, the sudden lightening on her feet, her hand tightening over his as everything else about her relaxes into the music that sweeps them across the lawn. And when she finally finds herself in Puck's arms, albeit for no more than the span of a stanza before he's whisked away to perform his kingly duties as host and sovereign, she breathes him in - sunshine and richness and joy, aware that all eyes are on them, like when they'd danced as children at a different wedding long ago and she'd been sure her heart was laid bare for all to see.

When the sun sinks into the watery horizon, the guests trickle away, doe-eyed twos and raucous fours and fives returning to their homes to tell stories of a union that defied the odds. _A match made in hell_ , they'll laugh as they shake their heads in wonder, _enemies who found common ground, and then some - mightn't that spell hope for the rest of us?_ Amidst this massive exodus, the King of Faerie stands stately - and conspicuously - alone, graciously receiving the genuflections of his subjects and returning blessings upon their heads in the lilting tongues of his court. He would've _much_ preferred to camp out at the buffet table and unleash prank upon prank on some of the more uppity relatives on his Mother's side, of course, but even he knows that this - the smiling and simpering and (oh, mercy) the kissing of hands and cheeks and _mouths_ \- is but momentary; soon they will all have gone, and it will just be him and Sabrina, as it always has been, and if he must wait another hour or two to have her all to himself, well, what is that compared to the years of watching her walk away from him?

Finally, filtering through the last of their well-wishers, he spots her, staring out at the world on fire. Even from the back, she's breathtaking: the rosy light gilding the strands of her hair, her posture straight and tall and sure. _She looks like a queen_ , he thinks, _whatever she believes - and regardless of how she'd brazenly abandoned me to face the fawning multitude alone._

He saunters up, hands in pockets.

"So . . . nice party. Come here often?"

She suppresses a smile and, keeping her back to him and her expression nonchalant, plays along. "I've been to worse."

"Yes, I remember that," he continues, just as serious. "I don't think I've ever been called an angel before then."

"And you proceeded to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt exactly why."

"You know what they say: a man is nothing without his reputation."

Her eyes glint dangerously; oh, he was making this too easy. She glances over her shoulder, ready to throw his arrogant quip back in his face -

\- his beautiful face -

\- and he renders her speechless just to behold him - always has, but even more so today, when he's finally hers and she's shouted it to the world with all her being.

He smirks knowingly, taking a step forward to flank her. "You'd think, given it's our wedding and all, that you'd be the one person I'd be hanging out with most today, but I've hardly seen you. I swear I've spent more time talking Underworld trade sanctions with the ambassadors from Sylvandale."

"I was about to say the same, but I figured kings are always expected to make political love to everyone, even on their wedding day."

"Only one dance!" His nose wrinkles in disgust. "And then whisked away by this and that to meet so-and-so's third cousin. Or fourth or fifth. Or _one-zillionth_. As if I'd remember all those names; I'd sooner roll around in mud."

"Well, I don't see any cousins now."

"True." He dips his eyes to hers and, even though the music has ended, takes her hand and pulls her into position, his feet already moving to some phantom tune only he can hear. She blinks as his panpipe trills to summon his minions; seconds later, on the order of their King, hundreds of twinkling lights surround them, and a melody drifts in on the wind, haunting and beautiful. They dance, together at last, while the sky drips into velvet night and stars wink in and out behind ashen clouds. When the song fades, he stills, and she feels his hand on her cheek, and then she's looking up at him, and his mouth is on hers, a promise that this is only the beginning, that they will have kisses like this for years to come, because they will always be consumed by the wanting, and everything that had broken them and left them bereft before mattered only to bring them finally to this moment.

"Speaking of names," Puck's lazily revisits their earlier conversation when they can speak again, "congratulations on marrying up. What should I call you now that you're no longer a Grimm?"

His voice is once more merry, drunk on the euphoria of triumph and Sabrina, out of her own contentment, takes the shot she'd been denied earlier.

"My-Lady-Who-Has-You-Wrapped-Around-Her-Little-Finger seems appropriate. Or else She-Who-Made-You-Stop-Being-A-Juvenile-Brat. And who says I'm not a Grimm anymore? I don't hear _you_ offering to drop your last name for mine."

"Fair enough, My-Lady-Of-The-Lame-Monickers. Be who you want to be; you've certainly earned it. Though, I suppose -" he sighs heavily, "- that makes me He-Who-Was-Left-At-The-Bottom-Of-The Teacup-When-All-Else Has-Been-Drunk-and-Spat-Out."

She'd been watching him as he'd spun his frivolous nicknames, sounding for all the world like the boy he used to be, impervious on the inside as much as out. But his throat bobs while his shoulders drop, and neither escape her because she knows so well, after this long, all the shades of him. She takes in his words, pondering what could lie _behind_ them.

"Do I detect resentment?" She tests.

He snorts in response. "I couldn't imagine _what_ about. I mean, it's not as if you were breaking down my door, even after destiny stuck its memo to our foreheads like Post-its from hell. I can't believe I actually got back in line after being picked over. Repeatedly! I, the once-indomitable Trickster King, has no pride, no glory and no name, it turns out. I am henceforth officially a non-person."

 _Once more the persecuted martyr wallowing in false humility; still bulletproof then,_ she concludes _, and I was mistaken_. So she picks up their game once more. "I never thought I'd see the day you'd confess to being anything less than astounding. I'm flattered you'd be that for me."

"The dregs? Apparently, yes, because - look."

He holds up his left hand, brandishing the simple band on his finger, and Sabrina thinks she's beginning to understand.

"Nice trophy," she smiles. "Looks like you're the winner after all."

"Yes, but how many did you dust _before_ the scales fell from your eyes?"

The familiar question startles her and instinctively, she reaches for the lie to protect herself before she remembers that the game is over. Her thoughts are instantly far away as she blinks into the glittering night, counting her years as a thief, and the lives she'd pillaged.

 _Seven . . . no - six_ , _because one of you had the courage to challenge me, even though I left at the end anyway. I was so weak then_ , _but I'm strong now, stronger than my guilt, stronger than I thought I was. And If we meet again someday_ , _I swear by the stars that I will be kinder to you,_ all _of you, whether or not you remember me._

She takes Puck's hand, wraps his arm around her and feels his body brace her back, solid and warm.

"Do you know," she muses, "that in the old days, you'd get gold only after it's gone through fire?"

"What?"

"Before that, it's kind of a mess. All mixed up with other stuff that you don't want."

"Uh-oh. It's one of _those_ stories, isn't it? And I bet there's a moral coming up. How nauseating."

" _Gold_ ," she ignores his sarcasm, "is what's left when the dross has melted away. I've heard it's an extremely tedious process, but the results are worth it. And -" she turns her face so he can hear every word, "- once you have it - the gold, I mean - you wonder how you could've ever thought you'd be happy with anything less."

"Tough luck for the dross, then." Puck answers after a pause, but his tone is benign as he runs his thumb over hers.

"Good lord, they're flirting in metaphors now. Is nothing sacred anymore?" A prim voice interrupts them, and it's Pinocchio, grinning, holding Daphne's hand beside him.

Puck growls. "Shut up, wooden boy. When it's your turn, I'm going to hit you with so many bad puns you'll be begging to go back to the woodshop and live out the rest of your life as a splinter."

"Ouch." Pinocchio laughs and turns to go, but Daphne looks back over her shoulder and winks at them. And Sabrina feels the heaviness leave Puck, as if that one belligerent exchange had miraculously restored a little of his old spirit. She twists in his arms and catches his stare, unblinking and bright.

"Eight, by the way," she tells him. "You're my eighth." The relief is beyond tremendous: _only_ eight.

He lifts a finger in stern reminder, and with it pokes her nose . " _And_ your first."

She squeezes his hand. "And my last."

* * *

 **TEN YEARS LATER**

In the throne room of Faerie is a single chair of rich mahogany. The King of Faerie sits here alone, fingering his panpipe as he relaxes after a typical day overseeing the matters of his court. Protruding from the right armrest is a cunning lever that simultaneously reclines the back and erects a screen inbuilt with thousands of movies and video games. In the left armrest is a button that shoots putrid gas from hidden openings in the ceiling of the room - a feature he uses ad libitum to bring overlong political meetings to sudden and dramatic ends.

From this armrest where they'd been carelessly dangling, his legs swing back over and he straightens, landing his feet lightly on the floor. A blast from his panpipe brings a cloud of tiny pixies, twittering excitedly as he gives them their instructions. He wants a glass of dandelion wine - a _big_ glass, not the wimpy finger bowls they'd brought him last time - and he has a craving for those caramel pecan cupcakes from Magnolia. A dozen would not go amiss, he barks, and while they're at it, they might as well stop by the corner florist for a bunch of flowers. No roses, he warns - they're common and therefore tacky; he wants sunflowers, because they remind him of her grandmother (and his).

In the top floor of an office skyrise three blocks from Central Park is a room that overlooks the river. Its walls are covered with old photographs and legal degrees and in a corner sit a swivel chair and a heavy desk neatly stacked with folders and piles of documents. On the desk is a single photograph of a young family of four - a man and a woman and two little girls with blonde hair and mischievous smiles. The chair is a custom refashion of another, much older piece of furniture that had been in the man's family for as long as he can remember. When it had sat in his home, it had been a rich golden oak, intricately-carved and unspeakably uncomfortable, but its old lines are smooth now, and its honey tones lie buried under an ebony stain that matches the desk and modern decor of the room. The woman in the photograph is seated behind the desk, reading off her laptop screen. She hears a noise from the doorway and lifts her gaze, but beyond the name etched on the frosted glass - Sabrina Grimm, Esq. - she spies nothing amiss in the shadows moving beyond.

The door opens then, and an elderly receptionist peers round it.

"Mayor Charming called to say she'll meet you for lunch after all - they canceled the press conference at the last minute. And your 10 o'clock is in the waiting room. Shall I send him in?"

"Yes," Sabrina Grimm replies, shutting her laptop and scooting the swivel chair backward to rise from it. It slides too far back and collides violently with the filing cabinet against the far wall, and when she bends to inspect the cabinet, she finds yet another dent in the metal.

"We should've turned you into firewood," she sternly addresses the chair, as if the offending piece of furniture were a guilty child. "You were supposed to bring me luck and success but all you've done is destroy things."

Another noise diverts her attention to the door, and there is a man there, standing hunched in a suit that's clean but in need of repair. His hair is not so much unkempt as a veritable riot all over his body, with the exception of his eyes, which are bloodshot, and his mouth, which protrudes from his face at the end of a muzzle.

"Mr. Wolf," Sabrina smiles at him. "Have a seat. I understand you believe there's been some discrimination at your workplace."

"I was fired, Ms. Grimm," the man replies, wringing his hands, "for looking like this. I've worked hard, I haven't taken even a day off and I'm never late. I need this job, ma'am; I have a family to feed."

Sabrina nods. "Of course. I'm sorry this happened to you, but don't worry - it's a straightforward case; we'll get this dealt with without too much trouble. So, this job aside, how's life treating you? And how are the kids doing?"

* * *

When night falls, Sabrina emerges from her cab and unlocks the door to her two-story brownstone. She drops her briefcase on the floor of the entryway and flicks on all the lights. As if it were a signal, a second later she hears the thunder of little feet pounding on the wooden staircase.

"Mom!" High voices greet her as their owners run into her arms. Both blond and bright-eyed, the smaller of the two girls plants herself in front of her mother and points at the other. "Alison was mean to me today! She was minding my business and I wanted her to go away but she _hit_ me! Jacintha gave her a time-out but she's still a poopypants!"

"I didn't!" Alison looks on the verge of tears. "And I'm _not_ a poopypants! Mom, make her stop!"

"No rude names, Emma; we talked about this, remember? Where's Jacintha?"

Far more elegantly, their nanny descends the staircase after them, a willowy woman with upturned blue eyes and silver wings that trail gracefully behind her. She pats the heads of the girls as she dips her own respectfully at Sabrina. "That was a smaller matter than it sounds, my lady. They had a good day, whatever else they're saying. Emma, why don't you tell your mother what you found in the backyard?"

And Emma launches animatedly into her story, all animosity with her sister forgotten. Sabrina lowers herself into a squat before her daughter, listening intently while trying not to grimace at the description of rotting birds and worms that wriggled even with their heads cut off. This one, she swears, is her father's daughter through and through.

The key in the lock turns once more, and the door opens to admit said father, tousle-haired and handsome - and incorrigibly smug. All eyes are immediately on him and Jacintha drops into a deep curtsey.

"Who did you fight with today, Daddy?" Emma shouts, and Alison takes the opportunity to slip her hand in her mother's.

"I didn't, Mom." Her urgent whisper is barely audible. " _Emma_ was bugging _me_. And Jacintha gave us _both_ a time out."

"Sounds like _I_ wasn't the one fighting today," Puck easily overhears his older daughter and throws Sabrina a conspiratorial look. "Should I take them both out and hang them upside down over the pond until they beg for mercy and swear never to misbehave again?"

Both girls instantly cheer and clap. "Yeah! Hang us upside down, Daddy! Fly over the pond and drop us!"

Sabrina shakes her head and pinches the bridge of her nose. "This is _precisely_ why they behave the way they do. You can't call it discipline if they actually look forward to it, you know."

"Your Majesties," Jacintha interjects, "perhaps I should run their baths before dinner?"

"No! The pond! We want to bathe in the pond!" Alison pleads.

"I'll fly you to the bathroom," Jacintha promises, scooping both girls up under her arms with surprising strength and taking off. "How's that for a deal?"

Puck's arms encircle Sabrina as she stares after them. "So - a good day, then?" He murmurs.

Sabrina nods, leaning into him. "Only one meltdown. A new record. Next, Jacintha will be saying they actually did their homework for once."

"No . . .!" Puck mock-gags. "I thought we had a rule: no homework in the house because Dad has allergies?"

"It's not funny!" Sabrina pushes him away with a hiss. "Do you know how many calls I've had from their teachers this week? Apparently _someone_ taught them to say that to get out of handing in their morning work. I had to say you were allergic to the pulp in that particular brand of filler paper, just so they don't think our kids are idiots. You've turned me into a liar, mister. From now on, _you're_ attending all their teacher conferences by yourself. Let's see how you like dealing with it!"

"Nuh-uh. I'm also allergic to entire _schools_."

"No, you are _not_! I can't believe -"

"Kidding," Puck chuckles. "You're way too serious, woman. Time to loosen up. Look -" he snaps his fingers and pixies swarm into the house, carrying gifts, "- betcha thought I forgot."

Sabrina's frown remains etched across her brow as the pixies deposit an enormous bouquet of sunflowers in her arms and the box of cupcakes in his.

"Happy anniversary, Stinker," Puck says dramatically. "Ten. I've been counting."

"Two digits - bravo," Sabrina glares at him, still upset, before looking down at what she's holding. "Sunflowers," she fingers the golden petals fondly, and her expression softens. "I miss her."

"Yeah. She'd have liked the kids. She'd have said they're just like you and Daphne."

"She never knew us when we were this age. And besides, they're nothing like us. They fight so much."

"And you both didn't? Ha! Who stole her little sister's kazoo and leveled an entire town? Who was such a bossypants that said sister hated her guts? Who went to -"

"Okay, fine! We had our differences! But we'd do anything for each other, you know that. Allie and Em, on the other hand . . . all this talking-back and absolutely _awful_ name-calling! It's _your_ half of the gene pool. It's completely corrupted them."

"Yessssss," Puck punches the air in triumph, and just manages to avoid Sabrina's shove. He catches her hands and pulls her to him instead.

"FYI, that gene pool is what got you to marry me, Sabrina. You couldn't resist, and you know it, so don't act like it's a bad thing. Look, they'll figure it out. Kids fight. I should know, since I spent thousands of years being one. And fighting keeps 'em on their toes. They wouldn't be our kids if they weren't ready to cut someone's head off at the slightest threat. Hey . . . speaking of which, it _is_ high time they learned to use a sword. I think this weekend I'll -"

Sabrina's cold stare shuts him up instantly.

"Or maybe we'll wait for them to learn that at school," he hastily amends. "There's plenty of time before they reach puberty and have to defend themselves from boys, right? Besides, _I'm_ here. If they so much as _talk_ to one on the phone before they're twenty-five, I'm hunting him down and running him through with a blunt, rusty pole."

In spite of herself, Sabrina smiles at her husband. _Puck'll get his retribution in due time_ , she thinks, remembering the hard time he'd given Henry as a boy making a mockery of the courting process. _It'd be almost funny to see him handle potential suitors; maybe I should invite Dad to come watch, too._

She cocks her head at the box in Puck's hands, all but forgotten during their conversation. "So, were you planning to eat them all or are you gonna share?"

"Well, given that it's our _anniversary_ , I s'pose you can have a bite out of _one_ of 'em," he grudgingly concedes.

"Or you could split them equally and _not_ have to sleep on the couch on our _anniversary_."

"You wouldn't make me!" His eyes are huge. "You _want_ me! I can see it all over your face."

"Er, if you're asking me to pick between you and a caramel pecan cupcake, you're either -"

"Have them _all_!" Puck shoves the box at her. "Ugh, I _hate_ being married to a lawyer! It's like being King doesn't even _count!_ "

Sabrina throws her head back in a guffaw. "I win! Sabrina: one, Puck: negative one million!"

She's laughing so hard that she doesn't see him barrel into her until it's too late and she's out through the patio doors and hundreds of feet up in the sky, hanging upside down by her foot. She would've screamed but all her breath is sucked out of her as Puck streaks higher and higher, until the stars are all around and the ground is tiny pinpricks of light on a postage stamp. She's still trying to curl upward so she can grab his hand when he drops her, and she plummets as the world closes in and wind rushes past her ears in a deafening roar.

Then she slams with sudden force into something soft and warm, and even though she knows he's got her, she's still utterly disoriented, and she clings to him, feeling her heart hammer against her ribs. Adrenaline ignites every fiber, but the taste of it is thrill, not fear.

"Just a reminder, y'know," his voice is molten in her ear, "that _I_ still rule the skies. And _you_ still like it."

He's right: she _had_ forgotten - what freedom meant for them, each the author of their shared story even as destiny itself penned the final line. What it felt like to be young and in love before jobs and children and the tedium of school routines and chores and neighborhood block parties. And what it'd done to her - both the wanting and then the having, the risk of the quest and the triumph that she'd been right, over and over again, to've returned to him at the end of it.

 _Ten_ years - a mere blink within the span of immortality - how far they'd come, and how easy it'd been to lose herself along the way.

She arches into him and kisses him, suddenly missing who they were when they'd said yes to each other all those years ago, but so, so glad that he's come to find her yet again.

" _Always_ you," she says, her heart so full it hurts.

His own voice is hoarse as he agrees, "First and last."

* * *

 **A/N: Finished finally! I have nothing to say except thank you for your reviews and PMs and that I am working on another story, which is an AU, but it's very long and I'm not even at the middle so it could be a while before it makes an appearance here.**

 **OakeX: Spot the line? You're welcome.**


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